Iraq: The home front
Monday, 23 Apr 2007 00:03
A red or a green for US troops in Iraq?
InTheNews.co.uk's Alex Stevenson looks at the impact the war in Iraq is having on domestic opinion in the US.
Maintaining domestic political support for coalition forces' efforts in Iraq is proving almost as big a challenge for US leaders as the struggle for security itself.
In Britain outgoing prime minister Tony Blair's legacy looks like being overshadowed by his support for the 2003 invasion of Iraq, but the issue has not become all-pervasive as it has across the Atlantic.
That is mainly because the UK military commitment in Iraq is set to fall by 1,600 troops within the next few months, as Mr Blair announced to parliament in February. Thankfully for him the south of the country, under British control, is relatively stable. Operation Sinbad is going well.
The same cannot be said for Baghdad, Anbar province and the rest of Iraq controlled by the US. Rather than ordering troop withdrawals US president George Bush is advocating a 28,000-troop surge – a controversial policy which, during the last few months, has reinforced rather than mitigated his reputation as a divisive leader.
A slide to civil war
On February 23rd last year terrorists bombed the Shia al-Askari mosque in Samarra, one of Shia Islam's holiest sites.
The attack was widely held responsible for heightening levels of sectarian violence between Iraq's Shia majority and Sunni minority.
Baghdad fell victim to multiple suicide bombings as coalition forces faced heightened attacks, in both severity and frequency, on civilian targets. Coalition forces found themselves combating sectarian violence as well as the pre-existing insurgency three years after the ousting of Saddam Hussein; 2006 had seen the situation in Iraq worsen rather than improve.
Defeat in the midterms
Unsurprisingly, this deterioration was not welcomed by the US electorate.
The Democrat party made a big issue of its opposition to the war in Iraq during America's midterm elections and voters made their agreement clear. By November 7th they had had enough, sending a "humbling" message to Mr Bush's administration by seizing control of both the House of Representatives and the Senate.
Mr Bush responded with a wave of replacements, substituting his top general in Iraq and even his secretary of defence. He faced growing rumours from Capitol Hill that the Democrats planned to use their new purse-string powers to cut funding from the Iraq mission.
The 'troop surge'
Having largely ignored the contents of an Iraq Study Group report led by former secretary of state James Baker, Mr Bush announced his plan for Iraq in the new year as Democrat Nancy Pelosi took up office as the Leader of the House of Representatives.
Rather than gradually withdrawing forces from the country as Mr Baker recommended, the president outlined his plans to send an additional 20,000 personnel to Iraq.
His arguments that exiting Iraq would create a "safe haven" for terrorists were rejected by Congress.
After an unseemly delay caused by Democrat divisions, the House of Representatives eventually expressed "disapproval" with their commander-in-chief through a non-binding resolution.
"The stakes in Iraq are too high to recycle proposals that have little prospect for success," Ms Pelosi said after the vote.
Sticking to their guns
In spite of the resolution, Mr Bush has chosen to continue on regardless in his commitment to his policy during recent weeks.
White House representatives point out that the security plan will take months to implement and that levels of violence cannot be expected to fall from their present levels just yet.
In response Senate majority leader Harry Reid today accused Mr Bush of being in a "state of denial" over Iraq, saying the situation was not showing any signs of improvement.
As US forces construct a concrete wall to separate Sunnis and Shia Muslims in Baghdad, Iraq continues to divide Americans.