Scott Ritter: "Achieving 'Total Victory' In An Unwinnable War

[Hissyspit]

http://www.alternet.org/waroniraq/24599/

Achieving 'Total Victory' in an Unwinnable War
By Scott Ritter, AlterNet. Posted August 26, 2005.

Doing what's necessary for a lasting peace in Iraq won't be easy -- and it includes bringing the troops home starting now.

- snip -

The failure of the U.S.-backed Iraqi government to ratify a constitution worthy of the name provides the Bush administration with a unique opportunity to shift gears in Iraq and the Middle East. It allows for the achievement of stability inside Iraq, and as a result, a meaningful reduction in the ability of anti-American terrorists to recruit and train followers to wage Jihad in Iraq and abroad.

Rather than continuing to reinforce failure by supporting a fatally flawed process, the Bush administration should allow the current government in power in Baghdad to collapse, walk away from the policy of direct meddling in the internal affairs of Iraq, and seek a more nuanced approach to achieving stability inside Iraq through a strategic shift in overall American policy in the Middle East as a whole.

The key reasoning behind the impetus for a radical departure from the current policy is the reality that the Bush administration has gotten it fundamentally wrong regarding Iraq from the very beginning, and as such lacks a foundation upon which to build any lasting achievements in that troubled nation. In its rush to achieve regime change in Iraq, the Bush administration disregarded years of expert opinion, which held that before one seeks to remove Saddam Hussein from power, one had better have a good idea about who or what will rule in his place.

- snip -

The list of mistakes made by the Bush administration after the invasion of Iraq is long and noteworthy, starting with dismantling the Iraqi army and internal security apparatus, and dissolving and disenfranchising the Ba'ath Party. By removing the infrastructure of security and stability while simultaneously eliminating the sole source of self-governance available to the Iraqi people, and failing to replace either with anything of substance, the Bush administration sowed the seeds of its own post-invasion doom. The U.S. military forces occupying Iraq were too few in number to provide for the day-to-day security of the Iraqi people, let alone hold a fragile nation-state together once the glue of Saddam and the Ba'athist Party had been removed.

MORE

Scott Ritter was U.N. Chief Weapons Inspector in Iraq from 1991-1998 and is author of 'Iraq Confidential: The Untold Story of America's Intelligence Conspiracy,' to be published by I.B. Tauris (London) in the summer of 2005.

[Canuckistanian]

1. Scott! Where ya been?

So he finally speaks up about the quagmire. Or maybe this is the 1st time I'm noticing....

[The_Casual_Observer]

2. Ritter is the ONLY one that got it at least 1/2 right

from the start. He is a remarkable guy and a voice of sanity and reason.

[longship]

3. He's also a registered Republican.

That's what he says.