On March 19, 2003, the American invasion of Iraq began when President George W. Bush ordered missiles fired at a bunker in Baghdad where he believed that Saddam Hussein was hiding. On June 30, 2009, America pulled its forces out of Iraqi cities as part of a phased withdrawal from the country.
After six years of war, there seems to be an end in sight for the American occupation. In June, American forces met the deadline set for their withdrawal from Iraqi cities under an agreement that took effect Jan. 1. Declaring a national holiday to mark the occasion, Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki positioned himself as a proud leader of a country independent at last, looking ahead to the next milestone of parliamentary elections this winter. He made no mention of American troops in a nationally televised speech, even though nearly 130,000 remain in the country. The excitement, however, rang hollow for many Iraqis, who fear that their country's security forces are not ready to stand alone and who see the government's claims of independence as overblown.
While scattered bombings continue, the Brookings Institution has described Iraq as existing in "a kind of violent semi-peace." That the phrase was promptly denounced as Orwellian underscored how deeply controversial the conflict remains, with almost every event, and even facts, subject to dispute or distrust. Violence may have dropped precipitously, but only from the worst levels of the past years.
President Obama, who campaigned on a promise to end the war, entered office indicating that he did not intend to waver from his goal. On his first full day in office he told Pentagon officials and military commanders "to engage in additional planning necessary to execute a responsible military drawdown from Iraq.'' A month later, he announced a plan to withdraw all combat troops by August 2010 and all remaining troops by December 2011. While the timetable was slightly longer than he had pledged during the campaign, Mr. Obama's promised withdrawal will put American policy on a path toward a clear end of the war, although the path is strewn with obstacles and potential flashpoints, like planned elections and referendums that could make Iraq stronger and more democratic - or reignite ethnic and sectarian divisions, sending it plunging back into civil war.
PREPARATION AND INVASION
Almost immediately after ousting the Taliban from power in Afghanistan following the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001 - some argue, even before - Mr. Bush began to press the case for an American-led invasion of Iraq. He cited the possibility that Saddam Hussein still sought nuclear, biological and chemical weapons in defiance of United Nations restrictions and sanctions. Mr. Bush and other senior American officials also sought to link Iraq to Al Qaeda, the terrorist organization led by Osama bin Laden that carried out the Sept. 11 attacks. Both claims have since been largely discredited, though some officials and analysts continue to argue otherwise, saying that Mr. Hussein's Iraq posed a real and imminent threat to the region and to the United States.
In his State of the Union address in 2002, Mr. Bush lumped Iraq in with Iran and North Korea as an "axis of evil.'' In his 2003 address, Mr. Bush made it clear the United States would use force to disarm Mr. Hussein, despite the continuing work of United Nations weapons inspectors in Iraq, and despite growing international protests, even from some allies. A week later Secretary of State Colin L. Powell made the administration's case before the United Nations Security Council with photographs, intercepted messages and other props, including a vial that, he said, could hold enough anthrax to shut down the United States Senate.
In March, with a "coalition of the willing" and disputed legal authority, the United States led a multinational invasion from Kuwait that quickly toppled Mr. Hussein's government, despite fierce fighting by some paramilitary groups. The Iraqi leader himself reportedly narrowly avoided being killed in the war's first air strikes. The Army's Third Infantry Division entered Baghdad on April 5, seizing what was once called Saddam Hussein International Airport. On April 9, a statue of Mr. Hussein in Firdos Square was pulled down with the help of the Marines. That effectively sealed the capture of Baghdad, but began a new war.
CHAOS AND INSURGENCY
The fall of Iraq's brutal, powerful dictator unleashed a wave of celebration, then chaos, looting, violence and ultimately insurgency. Rather than quickly return power to the Iraqis, including political and religious leaders returning from exile, the United States created an occupation authority that took steps widely blamed for alienating many Iraqis and igniting Sunni-led resistance. They included disbanding the Iraqi Army and purging members of the former ruling Baath Party from government and public life. On May 1, 2003 Mr. Bush appeared on an American aircraft carrier that carried a banner declaring "Mission Accomplished," a theatrical touch that even the president later - very much later - acknowledged sent the wrong message.
In the security and political vacuum that followed the invasion, violence erupted against the American-led occupation forces and against the United Nations headquarters, which was bombed in August 2003, killing the body's special representative, Sergio Vieira de Mello. The capture of Saddam Hussein in December 2003 - the former leader was found unshaven and disheveled in a spider hole north of Baghdad - did nothing to halt the bloodshed. Nor did the formal transfer of sovereignty to the Iraqi people in June 2004 - which took places a few months after the publication of photographs showing the abuse of prisoners at Abu Ghraib had further fueled anger and anti-American sentiment.
In January 2005, the Americans orchestrated Iraq's first multi-party elections in five decades, a moment symbolized by Iraqis waving fingers marked in purple ink after they voted. The elections for a Transitional National Assembly reversed the historic political domination of the Sunnis, who had largely boycotted the vote. A Shiite coalition cobbled together by Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, the most powerful Shiite cleric, won a plurality, and put Shiites in power, along with the Kurds. Saddam Hussein stood trial, remaining defiant and unrepentant as he faced charges of massacring Shiites in Dujail in 1982.
A new constitution followed by the end of the year, and new elections in January 2006 cemented the new balance of power, but also exposed simmering sectarian tensions.
In February 2006, the bombing of the Askariya Mosque in Samarra, one of the most revered Shiite shrines, set off a convulsion of violence against both Sunnis and Shiites that amounted to a civil war. In Baghdad, it soon was not unusual for 30 bodies or more to be found on the streets every day, as Shiite death squads operated without hindrance and Sunnis retaliated. That steady toll was punctuated by spikes from bomb blasts, usually aimed at Shiites. Even more families fled, as neighborhoods and entire cities were ethnically cleansed. Ultimately, more than 2 million people were displaced in Iraq, and many of them are still abroad to this day, unable or too afraid to return.
Arab and Kurdish tensions also ran high. In Mosul, a disputed city in the north, Sunni militants attacked Kurdish and Christian enclaves. The fate of Kirkuk, populated by Arabs, Kurds and smaller minority groups, remains disputed territory, punctured routinely by killings and bombings.
After a political impasse that reflected the chaos in the country, Nuri Kamal al-Maliki, a little-known Shiite politician previously known as Jawad al-Maliki, became Iraq's first permanent prime minister in April 2006.
AT HOME
The messy aftermath of a swift military victory made the war in Iraq increasingly unpopular at home, but not enough to derail Mr. Bush's re-election in November 2004. Almost immediately afterwards, though, his approval rating dropped as the war dragged on. It never recovered. By 2006, Democrats regained control in Congress. Their victory rested in large part on the growing sentiment against the war, which rose with the toll of American deaths, which reached 3,000 by the end of the year, and its ever spiraling costs. Saddam Hussein was sentenced to death just before the Congressional elections, and Secretary of Defense Donald H. Rumsfeld resigned the day after the vote, widely blamed for having mismanaged the war.
In the face of rising unpopularity and against the advice of the Iraq Study Group, a bipartisan group of prominent Americans, Mr. Bush ordered a large increase in American forces, then totaling roughly 130,000 troops. He decided to do so after meeting with his advisors over the New Year's holiday weekend, even as Mr. Hussein was hanged in a gruesome execution surreptitiously filmed with a cell phone.
The "surge," as the increase became known, eventually raised the number of troops to more than 170,000. It coincided with a new counterinsurgency strategy that had been introduced by a new American commander, Gen. David H. Petraeus, and the flowering of a once-unlikely alliance with Sunnis in Anbar province and elsewhere. Moktada al-Sadr, the radical anti-American Shiite cleric, whose followers in the Mahdi Army militia had been responsible for some of the worst brutality in Baghdad, declared a cease-fire in September. These factors came together in the fall of 2007 to produce a sharp decline in violence.
Political progress and ethnic reconciliation were halting, though, fueling calls by Democrats to begin a withdrawal of American forces, though they lacked sufficient votes in Congress to force one. Senator Barack Obama of Illinois, an early opponent of the war, rose to prominence in the Democratic race for the nomination in large part by capitalizing on the war's unpopularity. But by the time Mr. Obama defeated Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton for the nomination in 2008 and faced the Republican nominee, Senator John McCain, Iraq hardly loomed as an issue as it once had, both because of the drop in violence there and because of the rising economic turmoil in the United States and later the world.
BUSH REACHES AN AGREEMENT
At the end of 2007, Mr. Bush and General Petraeus had succeeded in maintaining the level of American forces in Iraq above what it was before the "surge" began. Today, more than 130,000 remain there. Prime Minister Maliki's government, increasingly confident of its growing military might, expanded operations against insurgents and other militants that had once been the exclusive fight of the Americans. The militias loyal to Mr. Sadr, who had gone into exile, were routed in a government-led offensive in southern Iraq, though significant assistance from American forces and firepower was needed for the Iraqis to succeed. By May, the offensive extended to Sadr City in Baghdad, a densely populated neighborhood that had been largely outside of the government's control.
In December 2008, Mr. Bush made a valedictory visit to Iraq, his fourth trip to the country he liberated from Saddam Hussein's rule and then plunged into bloodshed. The visit, intended to celebrate the new security agreements and the newly confident Iraqi sovereignty implicit in them, was instead overshadowed by an Iraqi journalist during Mr. Bush's press conference with Mr. Maliki. Muntader al-Zaidi, a television correspondent, hurled first one shoe, then a second, at Mr. Bush, who ducked and narrowly averted being struck. Hurling a shoe is insult enough, but Mr. Zaidi also shouted: "This is a farewell kiss, you dog." The correspondent, who was beaten, arrested and, his relatives and lawyer said, later tortured, became a folk hero of sorts in the Arab world, though not universally. He was initially sentenced to three years in jail, but on April 7, 2009 Iraq's highest court reduced the sentence to one year.
American and Iraqi officials spent most of 2008 negotiating a new security agreement to replace the United Nations mandate authorizing the presence of foreign troops. Negotiations proceeded haltingly for months, but Mr. Bush, who for years railed against those calling for timetables for withdrawal, agreed in July 2008 to a "general time horizon." That ultimately became a firm pledge to remove all American combat forces from Iraqi cities by the end of June 2009 and from the whole country by 2011. He also agreed to give Iraq significant control over combat operations, detentions of prisoners and even prosecutions of American soldiers for grave crimes, though with enough caveats to make charges unlikely.
THE MALIKI GOVERNMENT
According to political advisers, Mr. Maliki is intent on changing the nature of Baghdad's relationship with Washington, shifting Iraq's role from a client state to a more equal partner. During a visit in February 2009 by President Nicolas Sarkozy of France, Mr. Maliki signaled a desire to gradually diminish American power over Iraqi politics and increase ties to other Western powers. He has also contended that his government had fixed the missteps of the Americans after the invasion, like the American decision to dismantle the pre-war Iraqi Army.
In foreign policy, the increasing confidence of the Maliki regime was reflected in its more assertive efforts to show its independence, and a drive to cajole fellow Arab nations into opening embassies in Baghdad.
But internally, the transition from insurgency to politics to governance - a key to stabilizing the country after six years of war - was proving to be anything but steady and sure. Iraq's provincial elections on Jan. 31, 2009 passed with strikingly little mayhem, raising hopes that democracy might take hold. The Dawa Party of Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki was the overwhelming winner, but the party fell short of being able to operate without coalition-building. Over all, the results remained divided along sectarian lines, with Shiite-majority provinces choosing Shiite parties and Sunni-majority provinces choosing Sunni parties. The election outcome conveyed a dual message: many Iraqis want a strong central government, rather than one where regions hold more power than the center, but they do not want all the power in the hands of one party.
On the ground in the provinces, however, what happened in the months after the election was something all too familiar to Iraqis: threats, intrigue, back-room deal-making, protests, political paralysis and, increasingly, popular discontent.
Two and a half months after the elections, the 14 provinces that voted have only now begun forming provincial councils, the equivalent of state legislatures in the United States. Five provinces, including Babil, Najaf and Basra, still have no functioning governments, despite a deadline that passed in early April 2009, as party leaders squabble over the selection of governors, council chairmen and their deputies. Elections that were supposed to strengthen Iraq's democracy, unite its ethnic and sectarian factions, and begin to improve sorely needed basic services - water, electricity, roads - have instead exposed the fault lines that still threaten the country's stability.
The disarray reflects the anxious jockeying before national elections expected in winter 2009, contests that could inflame tensions and disrupt President Obama's plan to withdraw American combat forces in 2010.
PLANS FOR WITHDRAWAL
Mr. Obama did not oppose the status of forces agreement reached in late 2008, because it left him considerable flexibility to carry out his campaign pledges. What was unclear was how quickly his administration would move to withdraw American forces, particularly in light of advice from General Petraeus's successor, Gen. Ray Odierno, who had developed a plan for a slower withdrawal - two brigades over six months, compared with one brigade a month. The American military presence in Baghdad and elsewhere was already markedly diminished. General Odierno and other military commanders argued that political developments in Iraq would be crucial to the pace of security changes.
After discussions with military commanders, Mr. Obama on Feb. 26, 2009, declared the beginning of the end of the war. The plan he announced at Camp Lejeune, N.C., will withdraw most of the troops now in Iraq by the summer of next year, leaving 35,000 to 50,000 to train and advise Iraqi security forces, hunt terrorist cells and protect American civilian and military personnel. Those "transitional forces" will leave by 2011 in accordance with a strategic agreement negotiated by President George W. Bush before he left office.
"Let me say this as plainly as I can," Mr. Obama said. "By August 31, 2010, our combat mission in Iraq will end."
The plan not only represented a sharp change in military strategy, but marked a sharp change in America's attitude about Iraq after years of wrenching debate over war and peace. Despite some grumbling on the left and right, Mr. Obama's pullout plan generated support across party lines, including from his rival in last year's election and advisers to his predecessor, indicating an emerging consensus behind a gradual but firm exit from Iraq.
Iraq celebrated the withdrawal of American troops from its cities in June 2009 with parades, fireworks and a national holiday as the prime minister trumpeted the country's sovereignty from American occupation to a wary public. The excitement rung hollow for many Iraqis, who still feared that their country's security forces were not ready to stand alone and who saw the government's claims of independence as overblown.
One of the many issues that continues to threaten the country's fragile stability is the semiautonomous Kurdistan region. Massoud Barzani, elected the region's president in July, promptly rejected proposals by the United Nations to resolve the nation's explosive internal border disputes, including the option of turning Kirkuk Province -- including the oil-rich city of Kirkuk that is claimed by Kurds, Sunni Arabs and Turkmens -- into an autonomous region.
By the end of July, there were no longer any other nations with troops in Iraq -- no "multi" in the Multi-National Force. As Iraqi forces have increasingly taken the lead, the United States became the last of the "coalition of the willing" that the Bush administration first brought together in 2003.
On July 28, General Odierno told reporters that the Iraqis will be unable to handle their own air defenses after all American troops withdraw by the end of 2011. Although he did not directly say that American planes and pilots might have to serve and protect until the Iraqis could defend their own airspace, General Odierno said a United States Air Force team was expected soon to assess what the United States could, and should, do.
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