What Should Bush Do?

By Morton Abramowitz; Richard Lugar; Barry McCaffrey

"[BUSH] MIGHT REDEFINE SUCCESS AND ANNOUNCE A QUICKER EXIT STRATEGY."

The bloody events in Iraq over the past month have raised the specter of another huge American disaster, the possibility that after again spending blood and huge treasure we will have to get out of Iraq without leaving a stable democratic government and the Middle East transformed--at least not in the way the Administration expected. As uncertainty rises in the U.S. about what we are doing in Iraq, the bipartisan consensus insists that we must "stay the course" because failure to do so will have "catastrophic" consequences for the U.S. and Iraq.

It is too early to declare that we will be unsuccessful in Iraq if we strenuously persist in pursuing important goals. But the basis for believing these can be achieved is eroding. There is a growing belief in the U.S. that we do not know what we are doing in Iraq, that the U.S. is drifting and losing Iraqi support, and to use another once familiar term, that we are in a "quagmire." Regrettably, there is reason for the increasing skepticism. The Administration's basis for going to war has come to look shaky, and it clearly had little idea of what to expect beyond destroying the Saddam regime. We are trying to create a radically different state in a place we have little understanding of and were effectively cut off from for 15 years. We are supposedly turning over "sovereignty" in less than three months, but we are not sure to whom.

It is tempting to believe, as many on both sides of the aisle apparently do, that we can achieve success by turning the military task over to NATO or by relying on the U.N. to fashion an Iraqi government. But NATO is not going to supply many troops in continuing hostilities. As for the U.N., its capacity at this juncture to shape the political future of Iraq is equally dubious. It has had a checkered history in Iraq, and the Iraqi parties struggling for power are not overly concerned about any international legitimacy the U.N. might confer.

At some point the President may have to consider different approaches. He might redefine success and announce a quicker exit strategy that would include early elections, the complete turnover of political rule and military security to an Iraqi government, and the removal of all U.S. forces within a year. Such a policy would still require spending lots of money, time and diplomatic effort on our part pulling in more help from our allies. But it also bows to the realities of our predicament and probably gives the Iraqis greater urgency to form their own government, however democratic or parlous. A deadline for reducing our involvement might also win us greater international support.

The potential costs of leaving Iraq sooner rather than later, in uncertain circumstances, are great--instability and even civil war in Iraq, a vast loss of prestige and influence in the Arab world, encouragement to terrorists, and a serious decline in our unrivaled political ability to use force. But these must be matched against the costs of staying, a debate which is all too little done in public. If the worst does persist and the Administration wants to stay the course, the President must come forth and candidly tell the public not only the costs of leaving but also those of staying--the casualties, the expense, the continuing abrasions with allies, the polarization of our public life, the sidelining of other domestic and foreign priorities, and the uncertainty of success.

Ultimate success in Iraq would be a great achievement and is still worth vigorously pursuing. But the U.S. can also endure failure, however traumatic; it has done so in the past, it will likely do so in the future. It has a still enormously pre-eminent power position, the continued dependence of the world on our making things happen, the dynamism of its people, and above all great resilience. Hopefully, we will not fail, but if we do, we can be confident of surviving it.

"WE NEED MORE HELP...[WE NEED] TO BE MORE CREATIVE ABOUT OBTAINING IT."

The President must demonstrate to Iraqis and to the rest of the world that we are determined to finish what we started and do what it takes to bring about a stable, democratic Iraq. That means, above all, restoring the security situation. We can't hope to meet the June 30 deadline unless the country is relatively secure. This will require decisive removal of the groups that have taken over certain towns. It will require decisive defeat of the cleric Muqtada al-Sadr and of anyone else willing to take up arms against the coalition. We must commit the armed forces necessary to do the job.

We need more help from our friends and allies, and the Administration needs to be more creative about obtaining it. We could draw more help by first asking them to help us with broader development issues in the region, like economic reform and democratization. This would link stabilization of Iraq to the broader region and demonstrate to our allies that our agenda is more than a military one.

Security is absolutely necessary now for U.N. envoy Lakhdar Brahimi to travel in Iraq and to complete his work on reaching a governance agreement among Iraqi factions for the transfer of sovereignty. The transition requires a new U.N. Security Council resolution explicitly recognizing this arrangement and giving it international legitimacy. These are crucial steps that the Administration must make every effort to get right.

Finally, the Administration must demonstrate to Americans and Iraqis that this transition is going to be well-managed, including the part that shifts U.S. power from L. Paul Bremer at the Coalition Provisional Authority to a new U.S. ambassador to Iraq. Ideally, the ambassador, who requires Senate confirmation, should have been nominated before now. The Administration must appoint and provide security for the estimated 3,000 embassy personnel, who must get out into the country.

The American public needs confidence that this planning is progressing well. The Senate Foreign Relations Committee will hold a hearing next week, when I will ask the State Department to lay out the arrangements that have been made. The Congress, and in fact the world, needs to see how the June 30 transition date can work.

"WE NEED 80,000 OR MORE TROOPS ADDED TO THE U.S. ARMY."

When a grass fire first starts, you can jump right in the middle of it and stomp it out. But if you wait too long, it just becomes uncontrollable. We should immediately jump onto the opposition and end it, and then launch smart diplomatic moves to get NATO and the U.N. and other Arab forces involved in a bigger way.

There are no more U.S. troops to send to Iraq. That's why we need 80,000 or more troops added to the U.S. Army. Congress is allowing Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld to dig in his heels and try to maintain a foreign policy based on a grossly undermanned U.S. military. The key question isn't whether the 1st Cavalry Division is going to get run out of Baghdad--it's not. The key question is, if you've got 70% of your combat battalions in the U.S. Army deployed in Afghanistan, Iraq, South Korea and elsewhere, can you maintain this kind of muscular presence in that many places? The answer is no. But if we take action now to increase the size of the Army by 80,000 soldiers, we'll be able to handle this global reach. The key would be to activate nine National Guard brigades in the next 18 months and convert them into active-duty soldiers, allowing the reservists to go back to their communities.

The transfer of political authority on June 30 is extremely premature. By that date, there will not be a sovereign government with any political legitimacy. And here's another challenge we face: we need to put the training of Iraqi security services--the police, army, border patrol and others--solely under the control of the U.S. military instead of the Coalition Provisional Authority and give these Iraqi recruits more money. Iraq is costing us $4 billion a month, and only a tiny percent of that has gone directly to support the creation of Iraqi security forces. We should also transfer authority for security policy in Iraq from Rumsfeld to Secretary of State Colin Powell because the most important tasks are now diplomatic.

We need to invest two to 10 years in Iraq, and we'll have a good outcome. But if we think we're dumping this responsibility in the coming year, we're going to end up with a mess on our hands that will severely impair our international role for the coming 20 years.