PDA Seeks Action on Iraq Withdrawal

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I was a strong supporter of Howard Dean, but his latest remarks on the Iraq situation are less than encouraging.

Please see this link for the concrete proposals for dealing with the Iraq situation (I didn't want to copy them here so as to follow the rule for copyrighted material). There are options other than supporting the Bush plan to colonize Iraq.

http://www.pdamerica.org/articles/news/iraq-exit-action.php

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Last week, DNC Chairman Howard Dean stated that the United States must remain militarily engaged in Iraq. "Now that we're there, we're there and we can't get out," Dean told an audience of nearly 1,000 at the Minneapolis Convention Center on Wednesday, April 20th, as reported in the Minneapolis Star-Tribune. "The president has created an enormous security problem for the United States where none existed before. But I hope the president is incredibly successful with his policy now that he's there."

Potential Security Threats
Chairman Dean cited three potential threats to American security that, in his opinion, require a continued American presence in that nation. The threats he enumerated were that an American withdrawal could open the door for a fundamentalist Shiite theocracy which could be worse than that which currently controls Iran; could precipitate the creation of an independent Kurdistan in the north and destabilize the neighboring Kurdish regions of Turkey, Iran, and Syria; and could cause Iraq to become an operational base for terrorist organizations in the fashion of pre-war Afghanistan.

Threats Self-created?
Clearly, these are well-reasoned concerns that cannot and must not be dismissed out of hand. The Bush administration's catastrophic Iraq policy, beginning with their wide-ranging disinformation campaign regarding weapons of mass destruction, to their wildly inaccurate belief that American invasion forces would be welcomed with open arms, to their ham-fisted and massively corrupt handling of the occupation, has created the threats we now face.

Simply put, Iraq was not a hotbed of terrorism and threats to American security until the invasion and occupation. We were told Iraq was a threat to us, which was a lie. The invasion and occupation, which was supposed to destroy those threats, has in fact created those threats where they did not exist before. This reality, and the threats to our security that have been created by Bush's disastrous policies, cannot be ignored.

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1. Proposals for Orderly Withdrawal

http://www.pdamerica.org/articles/news/iraq-exit-action.php
Proposals for Orderly Withdrawal

Given these facts, along with all the other facts we have come to know all too well, arguments in favor of staying in Iraq must be met with concrete plans for a withdrawal from that country, plans that provide security and sovereignty for the Iraqi people, plans that directly address the legitimate concerns raised by Chairman Dean. The following are some suggestions for the formulation of that plan:

End the Houston-based contracting of work in Iraq and open the doors to Iraqi companies and workers. The believers in privatization should practice what they preach and allow Iraqis to make money off the work and repairs needing to be done. As funds flow into the Iraqi economy, burgeoning and reconstituted private companies can take it upon themselves to make sure the lights work, the roads are paved, the water is running, and the trash is picked up. Once upon a time, Iraq was the most modern and industrialized nation in that region. It remains today filled with highly educated workers who know how to run a country. The Iraqi people must be allowed to run their country once again, and must be paid well for their work by Iraqi employers not beholden to profit margins in the United States. This process should be combined with a strict GAO audit of what has been spent to date in Iraq, to eliminate further abuses while determining which American corporations have overcharged the taxpayers.

Arrange for the creation of a base of operations outside of Iraq where an Iraqi National Guard and police force can be trained to take over the security of their country. Establishing a place away from the violence where Iraqis can be prepared and armed for the work needed to gain control of the country will ultimately allow American forces to back away from policing the country, something that has been the chief aggravating factor among that populace. Doing this away from the violence will allow Iraqis to sign up for this work without fear of being blown sideways out a recruiting station. Several nations in that region are candidates for the basing of this training ground.
Until the infrastructure is repaired and security forces are assembled, steps must be taken to achieve stability without an American face on the action. The United States must work in good faith with both the United Nations and the Arab League to assemble a large security force comprised of people from the region. Care must be taken to avoid any pitfalls regarding potential ethnic and religious friction between the Iraqi people and these Arab security forces, but this can be managed. Once Iraqi infrastructure is restored and a security and police force is in place, the Arab forces can begin a phased withdrawal. Meanwhile, American forces can be removed en masse.

The Bush administration must practice what they preached about bringing democracy to that nation. Democracy is not the installation of a Vichy government managed by remote control from Washington. The Iraqi people will never accept such a government, and the violence and chaos will never end. If we provide security by way of the aforementioned steps, the Iraqi people will most certainly be capable of deciding how their country will be governed. The recent farce of an election did not achieve this; almost all of the candidates were anonymous because they feared assassination, and large swaths of the populace did not participate because they saw it as the sham it was. If the previously-described steps to awaken the Iraqi economy and provide security to the Iraqi people are taken, the government created by legitimate elections will almost certainly not pose a threat to American security.

A vital element to the process will be the establishment of a set timetable for withdrawal. Timetables are dangerous; if they are not met, rage is the inevitable result. Yet the changes required of our status in Iraq need date markers and deadlines to push the process along, and the Iraqi people need to know exactly when their country will be their own again.

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2. Democratic Party Leadership and the Iraq Quagmire

http://pdamerica.org/articles/news/leaders-quagmire.php

Democratic Party Leadership and the Iraq Quagmire

Howard Dean recently stated regarding Iraq, "Now that we're there,
we're there and we can't get out." While Progressive Democrats of
America (PDA) honors and respects Governor Dean's effort to expand,
empower, and energize the Democratic Party grassroots base, and
further respects his engagement of small contributors and individual
activists, we take strong exception to Governor Dean's statements on
Iraq.

We do not believe his statements reflect the will or the wisdom of
the majority of the American people who oppose the Bush
administration's ongoing disastrous and immoral war policies. The
Democratic Party National Platform for America states, "Promoting
human rights is a basic value of our foreign policy." Our foreign
policy regarding Iraq has failed to live up to this promise.


The facts are quite clear:

The Bush Administration, using false intelligence estimates, misled
the country into an illegal, unnecessary and unwise invasion and
occupation of Iraq, a country that had neither attacked, nor posed an
immediate threat to, the United States.

As a result of that action, more than 1,500 American troops have been
killed, more than 10,000 other brave Americans have been maimed or
injured, and tens of thousands of Iraqis, including many innocent
civilians, have also lost their lives, been injured, and seen their
property and country's infrastructure destroyed.

(More. . .)