As Iraq Deteriorates, Iraqis Get More Blame
U.S. Officials, Lawmakers Change Tone
By Thomas E. Ricks and Robin Wright Washington Post Staff Writers Wednesday, November 29, 2006; A01
From troops on the ground to members of Congress, Americans increasingly blame the continuing violence and destruction in Iraq on the people most affected by it: the Iraqis.
Even Democrats who have criticized the Bush administration’s conduct of the occupation say the people and government of Iraq are not doing enough to rebuild their society. The White House is putting pressure on the government of Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, and members of the bipartisan Iraq Study Group have debated how much to blame Iraqis for not performing civic duties.
This marks a shift in tone from earlier debate about the responsibility of the United States to restore order after the 2003 invasion, and it seemed to gain currency in October, when sectarian violence surged. Some see the talk of blame as the beginning of the end of U.S. involvement.
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For example, a Nov. 15 meeting of the Senate Armed Services Committee turned into a festival of bipartisan Iraqi-bashing.”We should put the responsibility for Iraq’s future squarely where it belongs — on the Iraqis,” began Sen. Carl M. Levin (D-Mich.), the committee’s next chairman. “We cannot save the Iraqis from themselves.” He has advocated announcing that U.S. troops are going to withdraw as a way of pressuring Iraqi politicians to find compromises.Sen. Lindsey O. Graham (R-S.C.) followed by noting: “People in South Carolina come up to me in increasing numbers and suggest that no matter what we do in Iraq, the Iraqis are incapable of solving their own problems through the political process and will resort to violence, and we need to get the hell out of there.”"We all want them to succeed,” agreed Sen. Evan Bayh (D-Ind.). “We all want them to be able to stabilize their country with the assistance that we’ve provided them.” But, he added, “too often they seem unable or unwilling to do that.”
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It isn’t just politicians who have decided that the problem with Iraq is the Iraqis. In the military establishment, said Joseph J. Collins, a professor at the National Defense University, “there is lots of disappointment in the performance of Iraqi officials of all stripes.”
Thomas Donnelly, a hawkish defense expert at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, said he considers blame a legitimate issue. “Ultimately, just like success rests with the Iraqis, so does failure,” he said. “We’ve made a lot of mistakes, but we’ve paid a huge price to give the Iraqis a chance at a decent future.”
The blame game has also been playing out somewhat divisively within the secretive Iraq Study Group. The bipartisan commission, led by former secretary of state James A. Baker III and former congressman Lee H. Hamilton (D-Ind.), is deliberating policy recommendations to put forward next month.
“I’m tired of nit-picking over how we should bully the Iraqis into becoming better citizens of their own country,” former CIA Middle East expert Ray Close wrote in an e-mail to the other advisers to the study group.
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The long-term effect of blaming Iraqis also could be poisonous, said Juan Cole, a University of Michigan specialist in Middle Eastern issues. He predicted that it will “infuriate the Iraqis and worsen further the future relationship of the two countries.”
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During a surprise visit to Baghdad on Oct. 5, Rice said with uncharacteristic bluntness that the security situation was not helped by “political inaction.”
The Bush administration hoped the long-delayed formation of a government, which took about five months after the Dec. 15 election last year, would produce more initiative by Baghdad. But the security and political situation continued to deteriorate, so the administration increased the pressure on Maliki’s government. Over the past three months, U.S. officials and foreign diplomats said, senior U.S. military and administration officials visiting Baghdad have conveyed the same message: Get on with it.
“Our role is not to resolve those issues for them,” Rice told reporters last month after pressing Maliki to be bolder about disbanding militias and reconciling sectarian differences. “They are going to have to resolve those issues among themselves.”
Blaming Iraqis for the woeful situation disregards recent history, some experts argue. Phebe Marr, an Iraq expert and adviser to the Iraq Study Group, calculates that because of policy missteps and other errors, the United States bears about 60 percent of the blame. “You can’t say, ‘We did this and the Iraqis didn’t rise to the occasion,’ ” she said. “There’s enough blame to go around.”
“Ana Iraki” “I am Iraqi” and on Friday when I preach at the Mosque I am going to read my translation of this article in its entirety to the congregation.
Then I am going to preach.
I am going to preach on this article because my congregation and I are only dirty sand niggers who only understand force and must be introduced to it by Americans. I am going to preach on this article because my congregation and I must be made to understand that we are to blame for the calamity that Americans have visited upon our children. I am going to preach on this article because my congregation and I are only dirty sand niggers who only understand force and we must take the blame for being disgusting enough to exist.
I am also going to send a copy of this article together with my translation to every other clergyman I know that they may do likewise.
A bomb at al-Muaazam petrol station in central Baghdad killed one person and wounded 4. A police patrol in South Baghdad was bombed accounting for the remainder of the casualties. The market bombing in central Baghdad shortly after noon today killed two people and wounded ten others.
We should be really careful. Insurgents usually prepare rockets and grenades around the road waiting for US convoys to pass through so they can attack them. If we are not lucky enough to be far away from their targets, we too could end up victims of the attack.
1: Ammar Abbas, aged 12, was injured in the Sunday November 26th 2006 US attack on Husseiniya a suburb about 20 kilometers (13 miles) outside northeast Baghdad. 2: Another victim of the attack.