[Mb-civic] TOP 10 REASONS TO GET OUT OF IRAQ

Thu Sep 30 10:51:08 PDT 2004

Top 10 Reasons to Get Out of Iraq

By Erik Leaver, The Nation
 Posted on September 29, 2004, Printed on September 30, 2004
 http://www.alternet.org/story/20015/

The U.S. occupation of Iraq is the cause of, not the solution to, the
violence and the mounting deaths that followed the invasion. During the
recent fighting led by Muqtada al-Sadr in Najaf, as in countless other
battles inside Iraq, authorities in Washington have misread the military and
political situation. The Bush Administration uses the fighting as
justification for the continued presence of foreign military forces. Yet it
is precisely the presence of foreign military forces that is a major cause
of the instability. Ending the US occupation by bringing the troops home now
is a first step toward ending Iraq's nightmare.

 Most Iraqis agree. In a poll this past June, 55 percent of Iraqis opposed
the presence of U.S. forces in Iraq. While Iraqis cheered the overthrow of
the brutal regime of Saddam Hussein, they didn't sign up for a foreign
military occupation as a replacement. Now it is time to let Iraqis
themselves choose an alternative. Here are 10 compelling reasons the United
States should get out of Iraq.

 1) The Human Costs Keep Increasing

On September 7 the death toll of U.S. soldiers reached 1,000. Defense
Secretary Donald Rumsfeld has acknowledged that the insurgency is likely to
turn even more violent. While the American death toll made headlines across
the United States, the mounting number of Iraqi deaths, at least ten times
greater, gets scant attention. The U.S. military refuses to monitor or even
estimate the number of Iraqi civilian casualties. As Gen. Tommy Franks
described the Pentagon's approach earlier in Afghanistan, "We don't do body
counts."

 2) Iraqis Aren't Better Off

While the removal of the dictator Saddam was a welcome development for many
Iraqis, the streets of Baghdad and other cities remain dangerous war zones.
Clean water, electricity and even gasoline in this oil-rich country are all
in even shorter supply than during the dark years of economic sanctions.
Women face new restrictions and new dangers. Democracy, freedom and human
rights appear out of reach. And Iraq remains occupied by 160,000 foreign
troops, with all of the indignity that military occupation brings.

 3) The War Is Bankrupting America

This year's federal budget deficit will reach a new record  $422 billion.
The Bush administration's combination of massive spending on the war and tax
cuts for the wealthy means less money for social spending. The
Administration's fiscal-year 2005 budget request proposes deep cuts in
critical domestic programs. It also virtually freezes funding for domestic
discretionary programs other than homeland security. Among the programs the
Administration seeks to eliminate: grants for low-income schools and family
literacy; Community Development Block Grants; Rural Housing and Economic
Development; and Arts in Education grants.

 4) Halliburton's War Profiteering

The U.S. government's Iraq reconstruction process has cost both Iraqis and
Americans. Instead of boosting Iraqi self-determination by granting
contracts to experienced Iraqi businesses and working to lower the huge
unemployment problem inside Iraq, the U.S. government has favored U.S. firms
with strong political ties. Major contracts worth billions of dollars have
been awarded with limited or no competition. American auditors and the media
have documented numerous cases of fraud, waste and incompetence. The most
egregious problems are attributed to Halliburton, Vice President Dick
Cheney's former firm and the largest recipient of Iraq-related contracts.

 5) The "International Coalition" Is Fleeing

The "coalition," always more symbolically than militarily significant, is
unraveling. While the impact is felt more at the political than military
level, the Bush administration's claim that it is "leading an international
coalition" in Iraq is increasingly indefensible. Eight nations have now left
the coalition and many other countries have reduced their contingents.
Singapore has left only thirty-three soldiers in Iraq out of 191, and
Moldova's forces have dwindled to twelve.

 6) Recruitment for Al Qaeda Has Accelerated

The war against Iraq is leaving U.S. citizens more vulnerable to terrorist
attacks at home and abroad. According to the London-based International
Institute for Strategic Studies, the best-known and most authoritative
source of information on global military capabilities and trends, the war in
Iraq has accelerated recruitment for Al Qaeda and made the world less safe.
It estimates worldwide Al Qaeda membership now at 18,000, with 1,000 active
in Iraq. It states that the occupation has become the organization's "potent
global recruitment pretext," has divided the United States and Britain from
their allies and has weakened the war on terrorism.

 7) The War Is Draining First Responders From Our Communities

Since the beginning of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, 364,000 Reserve and
National Guard troops have been called for military service. This spring
alone, 35,000 new Guard troops were sent to Iraq. Their deployment puts a
particularly heavy burden on their home communities, because many of them
serve as "first responders," including police, firefighters and emergency
medical personnel. A poll conducted by the Police Executive Research Forum
found that 44 percent of police forces across the nation have lost officers
as a result of deployment to Iraq.

 8) Torture at Abu Ghraib

The Bush administration claimed that the liberation of Iraqis from the
inhumane rule of a dictator was a good-enough reason for taking military
action against that country. Now investigations of the U.S. military's
torture and abuse of Iraqi prisoners in Abu Ghraib has stripped the United
States of even that wobbly claim. The Bush Administration has tried to blame
a "few bad apples" for the torture, but abuse has been widespread, with more
than 300 allegations of abuse in Afghanistan, Iraq or Guantánamo. Many more
may exist, in light of the fact that Army investigators revealed in early
September at a Congressional hearing that as many as 100 detainees were
hidden from the International Committee of the Red Cross at the request of
the CIA. This was part of a larger strategy by the government, described by
Human Rights Watch as "decisions made by the Bush administration to bend,
ignore, or cast rules aside."

 9) Many Americans Oppose the War

Polls conducted in August 2004 by the CNN/USA TODAY/Gallup and the Pew
Research Center showed a great divide in the country: 51 percent believe
that "the situation in Iraq was not worth going to war over" and 52 percent
disapprove of the way President Bush is handling the war. Almost 60 percent
believe that President Bush does not "have a clear plan for bringing the
situation in Iraq to a successful conclusion."

 10) No "Sovereignty" Has Been Transferred

The U.S. occupation of Iraq officially ended on June 28, in a secret
ceremony in Baghdad. Officially, the Americans handed "full sovereignty" to
the Iraqi Interim Government. This was sovereignty in name, not in deed. Not
only do 160,000 troops remain to control the streets, but the "100 Orders"
of former CPA head Paul Bremer remain to control the economy. Although many
thought the "end" of the occupation would also mean the end of the orders,
on his last day in Iraq, Bremer simply transferred authority for the orders
to the undemocratically appointed interim Prime Minister, Iyad Allawi, who
has longtime ties to the CIA.