The Gulf between Iraq?s Government and its American steering committee, headed by President G.W. Bush, is widening. The death and the chaos is having its effect on the occupied, as well as on the occupiers. The U.S. patience with the Iraqi government?s slow progress or lack of any progress at all, has grown thin and the Iraqi patience with the occupying American and British forces has seemingly come to an end as well.
The very predictable and uneasy end to the Iraqi?American relationship was readily foretold, projected, assailed and written about in every major newspaper in the civilized world. The deteriorating relationship between the American liberator, turned occupier, and his subjugated Iraqi ally has been spoken about in every major and minor talk show and news cast in the world for over three years. Most educated people in the world could plainly see this outcome. Not President Bush apparently, and he is the one who should have tried the hardest to understand.
Anyone with even a minor understanding of the Middle East, and the people who have lived there for thousands of years, could have predicted the outcome of America extending its presence in Iraq for more than the time it took to free them from Saddam Hussein. No one in Washington was listening.
In 2003 the Iraqi people were grateful that we had taken out a brutal dictator on their behalf, and for our opening up a new realm of possibilities for the future of Iraq. They had no idea that the U.S. and British intention was to stay. When they finally realized that America and Great Britain had never really planned to leave Iraq to its newly freed citizens an insurgency began, an Iraqi insurgency. Donald Rumsfeld and President Bush, seemingly, never understood why the Iraqis would not want the United States to occupy it?s sovereign territory, or why countries neighboring Iraq would feel threatened by that presence.
Today, I believe, Prime Minister Maliki, having been given no other choice, began to untie the knot which has bound him to the Bush Administration and it?s unwillingness to listen to the people of Iraq, or to it?s duly elected government which has no real sovereignty in Iraq at all. Today Iraq has but two masters, the U.S. Military and the Insurgents/militias who fight them. The U.S. Military there to carry out the orders of the President of The United States and the insurgent/militias there to stop them from doing so. If there is even one, it is difficult to see Americas ?real? vital interest in Iraq.
Maliki said if necessary, Iraqi police and soldiers could fill the void left by the departure of coalition forces. "We say in full confidence that we are able, God willing, to take the responsibility completely in running the security file if the international forces withdraw at any time they want," he said.
A close advisor and friend of Prime Minister Maliki, Shiite lawmaker Hassan al-Suneid, clearly upset over the pressure being felt in his government, told The Associated Press that "the situation looks as if it is an experiment in an American laboratory (judging) whether we succeed or fail."
Being unusually critical of the U.S. military, he said it was committing human rights violations and embarrassing the Iraqi government through such tactics as building a wall around Baghdad's Sunni neighborhood of Azamiyah and launching repeated raids on suspected Shiite militiamen in the capital's slum of Sadr City. He also criticized U.S. overtures to Sunni groups in Anbar and Diyala provinces, encouraging former insurgents to join the fight against al-Qaida in Iraq. "These are gangs of killers," he said. In addition, he said that al-Maliki has problems with the top U.S. commander, Gen. David Petraeus, who he said works along a "purely American vision." "There are disagreements that the strategy that Petraeus is following might succeed in confronting al-Qaida in the early period but it will leave Iraq an armed nation, an armed society and militias," al-Suneid said. From Mr. Al-Suneid?s comments it is apparent that very critical measures are being taken by the US Military without even consulting the ?Sovereign? Iraqi Government.
Arming the Sunni militias and building the wall in Baghdad was conceived and carried out by General Petraeus, seemingly, without any consultation with the Iraqi ?sovereign? government who, after having learned about it, protested and demanded it be stopped, to no avail.
The benchmarks, set by the Administration for the Iraqi government, have been blocked by political and sectarian divisions among Shiite, Sunni and Kurdish leaders. In August, the parliament is taking a one-month vacation. They normally take a two month vacation. Either way, while they are on vacation American men and women will continue to fight and die waiting for the Iraqi parliament to find their footing, come to work and take control of the chaos in Iraq. In the meantime the U.S. Congress, afraid to confront an intractable President Bush, show up for the photo ops and talk shows to tell us all how much they want the war to end, but evidently not enough to cut off the funding of the war. It seems the President is sure they will not develop that spine for yet awhile.
United States citizens serving in Iraq, in uniform and not, should be more valuable to us than all of this. Our blood and treasure are being tossed into a war where we are the enemy to all and friend to no-one. That really bothers me on many levels. Having spent over three years in Iraq myself, I have many Iraqi friends who I care about and worry for. My heart breaks every morning when I read the paper, or listen to the news when they are telling me how many American men and women were injured or killed the day before.
My son, Army Sergeant Benjamin Adame, returned to Iraq for his second tour only yesterday. Unless I return to Iraq myself, I will see him again in about fifteen months. His first child was born two weeks ago. Our other son SSgt. Billy Adame is still recovering from the wounds he received in Iraq in 2006. My wife married a career Marine. She stood by faithfully as I was sent to Vietnam, Kuwait and Iraq in military and civilian capacities. Her husband and two sons were all in Iraq at the same time. She is a marvelous wife and mother. Watching Benjamin prepare to leave to Iraq this time, despite of all those years of military conditioning, was as difficult for her as seeing me board that airplane to Vietnam in 1970. It never gets easier for moms, or wives. President Bush?s baggage in Iraq includes a lot of moms and wives.
May your son stay safe and may our country move in the right direction before his 15 months over there is done.
Also may his loved ones back home have all the strength they need to get through... it can't be easy.
Thank you for this diary.
The troops are magnificent. They deserve magnificant civilian leadership.