BAGHDAD, March 19, 2009
Beginning Of The End For U.S. In Iraq?
Six Years After U.S. Invasion Of Iraq, The Future Of War-Torn Nation Remains Unclear
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Play CBS Video Video Obama Iraq Exit Plan President Barack Obama announced his plan for winding down the war in Iraq. Obama claims by August 2010, the war in Iraq will end. But Pentagon officials think this is a stretch. Chip Reid reports.
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Video Six Years Since Iraq Invasion It's been six years since the U.S. invaded Iraq. "Up to the Minute" Contributor Frank Ucciardo has the Iraqi perspective from the U.N.
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Iraqi boys walk among the debris of the former military base of Al-Rashid in Baghdad, Iraq, Wednesday, March 18, 2009. Six years after the U.S. invaded Iraq, the end of America's costly mission is in sight, but the future of this tortured country is much less clear. (AP Photo/Hadi Mizban)
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Photos Iraq: 6 Years At War A photo diary chronicling the 6 years of the war and efforts to rebuild a nation.
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Timeline Iraq War Timeline Key events, both military and political, in the conflict.
With violence down sharply, most Iraqis feel more secure than at nearly any time since the war began March 20, 2003 - March 19 in the United States.
But violence still continues at levels that most other countries would find alarming. Last week, suicide bombers killed a total of 60 people in two separate attacks in the Baghdad area, and an American soldier was fatally injured Monday on a combat mission in the capital.
Fighting still rages in Mosul and other areas of the mostly Sunni north. Competition for power and resources among rival religious and ethnic groups is gearing up, even as the U.S. military's role winds down.
Both the Sunni and Shiite communities face internal power struggles that are likely to intensify ahead of national elections late this year. Sunni-Shiite slaughter has abated, but genuine reconciliation remains elusive.
"If Iraqi leaders don't reconcile and work together, the situation will deteriorate," veteran Kurdish lawmaker Mahmoud Othman said. "There is no harmony among Iraqi leaders. Their work depends on their mood."
At the same time, U.S. combat troops are due to leave by September 2010, with all American soldiers gone by the end of the following year.
At home, Americans' interest in the war has tapered.
In exit polls conducted on Election Day 2008, 63 percent said they disapproved of the war.
In the final stage of the war, America's challenge will be to prevent ethnic and sectarian competition from exploding into violence on the scale that plunged the nation to the brink of all-out civil war two years ago.
U.S. commanders successfully lobbied Mr. Obama to maintain a substantial combat force in Iraq through parliamentary elections at the end of the year in hopes of curbing violence as the country's religious and ethnically based parties compete for power in the national balloting.
Damage control is a far less ambitious goal than the Bush administration foresaw when the U.S. launched the invasion with an airstrike on Dora Farms in southern Baghdad in a failed attempt to kill Saddam Hussein.
Missing Saddam in the opening moments of the conflict set the tone for what became a war of missteps and disappointments before the tide turned in 2007.
The war was launched to deny Saddam weapons of mass destruction and when events proved he had none, the goal shifted - to establish a Western-style democracy in the heart of the Middle East. That goal was only partially achieved.
Iraq: 6 Years At War
Freed Iraqi prisoner Ahmad Jabbar, centre, embraces his mother Um-al Ahmad, with his father Abu Ahmad on the left, after being released at the Um Al-Quraa mosque in western Baghdad, Iraq, Thursday, March 19, 2009. (AP)
Freed Iraqi prisoner Ahmad Jabbar, centre, embraces his mother Um-al Ahmad, with his father Abu Ahmad on the left, after being released at the Um Al-Quraa mosque in western Baghdad, Iraq, Thursday, March 19, 2009. (AP)
Now, the U.S. hopes that it can leave without the country disintegrating into chaos. The Americans hope Iraq will be strong enough to fend off interference by neighboring countries - notably Iran - and protect itself from a resurgent al Qaeda.
Prospects for a reasonably stable Iraq are certainly brighter than they were before the U.S. troop surge of 2007, when car bombs shook Baghdad daily and gangs of Sunni and Shiite gunmen ruled the streets.
Violence is down 90 percent. Much of the country is quiet, including the three Kurdish provinces of the north, the Shiite south and the Sunni-dominated Anbar province, where local tribes turned against al Qaeda.
Baghdad's parks are jammed on weekends with families only now feeling safe enough to venture from their own neighborhoods.
A survey of 2,228 Iraqis questioned nationwide last month for ABC News, BBC and Japan's NHK, found that 85 percent believed the current situation was good or very good - up 23 percent from last year.
About 59 percent felt safe in their neighborhoods, up 22 percent from last year, the survey said.
"We feel there's been a significant security improvement during the past months," said Ahmed Mahmoud Hussein, a health ministry employee in east Baghdad. "If sectarianism is wiped out and the security forces are equipped in a proper way, I think the country will see stability within five years."
But stability is difficult to measure in a country with a long history of underground movements - including Saddam Hussein's Baath party - and a tradition of tribal and other groups switching sides.
Sheiks who once cheered Saddam later worked with extremist groups and now proclaim their loyalty to the U.S.-backed government, and no one can be sure where their loyalties may go tomorrow.
In Wasit province, a Shiite area south of Baghdad, officials estimate major crimes such as kidnappings, murders and robberies have soared by 50 percent in the past two months. Aziz al-Amarah, an Interior Ministry commander, blames the rise on power struggles among local political parties.
Against this backdrop is the absence of power-sharing agreements among Sunnis, Shiites and Kurds that the U.S. has long believed were essential to ensuring lasting stability.
Legislation to manage the giant oil industry and distribute its wealth has been deadlocked in parliament for two years.
The central government and the Kurds have made little progress in resolving claims to a 300-mile swath of disputed territory in the north, including the oil-rich area around Kirkuk.
U.S. officials privately believe there is a very real chance of armed conflict between government troops and armed forces of the self-ruled Kurdish regional administration.
Many Iraqis fear that the relative calm simply means threat groups are laying low until the Americans leave.
"Iraq will face difficult economic situations for long time. ... The political process is still at a crossroads," Iraq's Shiite vice president, Adel Abdul-Mahdi, said last week. "The war is not over but it has just begun."
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Add a Comment See all 66 Comments
- if they can stop the corrution and start with some serious reconstruction then you will win the hearts and minds and the violence will stop. Get rid of the war profiteers.
End of Story. - Reply to this comment
- THE FOUR TRILLION DOLLAR
'WAR TO NOWHERE' IN IRAQ,
BROUGHT TO YOU BY THE MINDLESS CHRISTIAN RIGHT
AND THE FASCIST REPUBLICON PARTY, REAGAN.NIXON AND THE BUSH CRIME FAMILY
ALL ANTI AMERICAN NAZI's
Posted by pythoncharly at 7:50 AM : Mar 19, 2009
This is a true patriotic comment. - Reply to this comment
- Bush is gone, why we're still there?
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- There are still rejectionists who do not believe in the new political system, and that will lead to violence, just not at the levels as before. The major issues now facing Iraq however, are more political and economic. First there is the Arab-Kurdish and Shiite power struggles. The Kurds can?t attain any of their goals anymore, and that will probably lead them to eventually push for independence. The latter is playing itself out with Maliki attempting to create a new ruling alliance that will keep him in power. The other issue is the economy and services which are not doing well. The general bureaucracy moves at a snails pace, there?s massive corruption, etc. Meeting the public?s demands and needs is greatly lacking. Overall, there?s still going to deaths in Iraq for quite some time, but many of Iraq?s major problems have now moved to the political and social fields. Musingsoniraq.blogspot.com
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- Once again, everytime Obama gets his behind in a crack....they trot out all the Iraq lies he made...
I can't figure out why they do that? The whole country knows his campaign rhetoric was that he'd end Iraq before the end of 2009...and we knew that was a lie the first time he said it.
To trot it out now when he's made a total debacle of the economy, the national debt, China cutting off our credit cards....it's like one lie propping up 75 more lies.
Please give us a break at least from the Iraq LIE! - Reply to this comment
- Well, if we didn't go in for oil, what was it? The WMDs. No wait, it was because of Al Quada. Oh, wait it was to free them from Saddam. Oh darn, they caught us in all the lies again.
All this lying was because it was a war of terrorism by the United States for Exxon and Chevron. And today is the 6th anniversary of the illegal, failed, fiasco that was a big part of bankrupting us.
STOP THE US AND ISRAELI TERROR IN THE MIDDLE EAST! - Reply to this comment
- But I didnt see any libs up there showing aerial photos of bagdad disney land saying it was a WMD plant...
Or any libs out there showing pictures of a Bagdad ice cream truck saying it was a WMD launcher.
Thats yours neo-cons you need to OWN it. - Reply to this comment
- Obama was all very moral when we elected him, he was all for getting us out of Iraq and said that Iraq should be left to the people of Iraq (including their oil). Once he got in office and saw what a desperate state our economy was in, he dumped Bill Richardson and Caroline Kennedy, changed his values, and decided we should stay in Iraq and keep their oil for ourselves. Now that is change, but not the kind of change we voted for.
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- Its safer in Baghdad than in most of our cities in the US.
Posted by mav547166 at 12:01 PM : Mar 19, 2009
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I think you are right about that, I think more people have been murdered in LA the last 6 years. (But not for a trillion dollars) - Reply to this comment
- Bring them home now from the illegal and wasteful occupation. This is the SIXTH (6th) anniversary of the start of the invasion by our oil corporation for oil. Stop the terror by America. Stop the genocide in Iraq, Afghanistan and Palestine.
Posted by noloyalisti at 1:32 PM : Mar 19, 2009
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When did we get oil?
(at least that would have been something) - Reply to this comment
- Bring them home now from the illegal and wasteful occupation. This is the SIXTH (6th) anniversary of the start of the invasion by our oil corporation for oil. Stop the terror by America. Stop the genocide in Iraq, Afghanistan and Palestine.
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- Iraq will never be able to remain together once American forces are gone. Why its called ethnocentrism. The three major groups will fight among themselves for power and will eventually break up into three nations. And by the way what would be wrong with that?
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- Google 'Nation Building" next time you have some time to spare. We have been attempting to do it since the days of Teddy Roosevelt. It didn't work back then and it won't work today. Once we pull out of Iraq, they will have a theocracy within 10 years.
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- Servicemen killed in the last three wars. (Approx)
Korea--54,000--Truman got us into that one.
Vietnam--52.000--Kennedy got us into that one. 32,000 under Kennedy/LBJ--20,000 under Nixon.
Iraq--4000-- Bush got into this one!
On scale of US casualties in useless& unnecessary wars it would seem that Truman, Kennedy & Nixon would rank far higher than Bush in regards to wearing the title of "war criminal" & a person responsible for sending young people to their deaths.
And guyfrompa50 has a point in that Dems do not want any trials because they will have to drag so many Dems in to testify which would expose their complicity in the fiasco call the Iraq war. - Reply to this comment
- That would be Kennedy that got us into Vietnam. The greatest Democrat that ever lived!
Posted by buanneyphwank at 12:27 PM : Mar 19, 2009
Hey! No fair using facts! I think that is a violation of the CBS Rules of Engagement!!!
Your going to get an abuse report filed on you if you keep it up! - Reply to this comment
- LetsCleanHouse wrote: You people salivating over some kind of Bush trials...it ain't gonna happen...deal with it.
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Ariel Sharon was a war criminal. He never served a day in prison but nonetheless he will forever be a war criminal. His children will always be "the children of the war criminal". So will it be with George W. Bush, the Torture President. The world and history do not need a court room to read the writing ... deal with it. - Reply to this comment
- in the past 8 years the u.s. has gone from haveing respect from nearly every free country on the planet to a hated disrespected lump,obama is your only hope,ferchristsakes dont *** it up again,next time you try your hand at a war,pick some rag tag country that you might actually be able to handle,this practice of bombing and then defeat on the ground against combatants with sticks and stones gotta be humiliating at best.
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- Its safer in Baghdad than in most of our cities in the US.
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- With the International Red Cross verification of POW and civilian torture, the defense of the infamous interrogation techniques memo from the White House by VP Cheney, and the approval of those techniques, along with other corroborating evidence of an Italian and a German citizen being kidnapped and tortured and subsequently released due to mistaken identify by CIA/NSA/FBI sources....the top of the War Crimes list is relatively easy to identify, but the interim/lower level CIA officers have been identified by Italian authorities....I bet those are the ones this administration has to consider as more valuable than the needs of an International Court, but the top people giving the orders...need to be arrested and extradited for the world to consider America a moral country and for leadership of democratic principles again. We had best not pardon these war criminals or keep providing them some excuse for their 'high crimes and misdemeanors'.
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- Bush's idiotic decision to start this unneeded war is the biggest foreign policy blunder made by this nation since LBJ go us into the Vietnam War under similar false pretenses.
The sooner President Obama gets us out of this ?other mess? left him by George Duma$$ Bush the better. - Reply to this comment
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