MOSCOW. (RIA Novosti political commentator Marianna Belenkaya.) U.S. President George Bush has attempted to defend his administration's strategy in Iraq in a speech at the Naval Academy at Annapolis, Maryland.
It was one of a series of planned speeches on the situation in Iraq.
He spoke mostly about positive changes taking place in that country under the influence of the United States and its allies. But he could not answer the main question that bothers the majority of Americans. Polls show that what people want to know most is when U.S. GIs would leave Iraq.
Perhaps President Bush does not have an answer to this question. He can only promise that American troops will pull out as soon as the Iraqis learn to fight terrorists and maintain national security without foreign assistance.
Considerable progress has been made towards this goal, George Bush and his team claim, calling for time and patience in the same breath. And they can never give the date for withdrawal. But judging by the National Strategy for Victory in Iraq made public shortly before Bush's speech at Annapolis, they think that the U.S. military presence in that country will "change" in 2006, though they cannot guarantee this.
This is not what the voters want to hear, especially because the number of American victims is growing in Iraq: over 2,100 dead and some 16,000 wounded since March 2003. But the biggest tragedy is that President Bush stated the unpalatable truth in Annapolis, namely that Iraq may have to fight violence for a long time and it may take years to stamp out terrorism and rebels there. If the U.S. victory in Iraq is judged by the defeat of terrorists, American troops will have to stay very long there.
Moreover, it may become necessary not to reduce but increase the troops contingent in Iraq, the president said. According to the Brookings Institution, the number of U.S. troops has varied between 115,000 and 155,000 since the official end of the war in May 2003.
On the other hand, it does not matter how many Americans are stationed in Iraq, 150,000 as now or half the figure. Iraq's National Security Adviser Mufawak al-Rubaii said American troops could be scaled down to below 100,000 by early 2007. But no matter how few foreign troops remain in Iraq they will always be an irritant for certain political forces there, both the Sunni, who constitute the majority in Iraqi resistance forces, and the Shia.
The influential Shiite movement of Muktada al Sadr has called on all political forces in Iraq to sign a document on the timetable for the withdrawal of occupation troops and a ban on foreign military bases. The document also suggests postponing the decision on the federal structure of Iraq until the foreign troops pull out.
It is impossible to compile the timetable, however vitally it may be needed now. Even the opponents of the Iraqi war admit this. French Prime Minister Domenique de Villepin told CNN, "Any actions should be harmonized with the situation in Iraq and the region." A realistic timetable will depend on the situation in Iraq, he said, and "everything possible must be done to prevent chaos."
This could have been said by Russia, which also protested against the Iraqi war, though it has repeatedly called for drawing out a pullout schedule. It would be absurd to demand to name a date for the victory over terrorism, but it should be possible to set the timeframe when the Iraqis would tackle their national security issues independently.
In fact, the pullout schedule should coincide with the training program for the Iraqi security personnel, which is a highly delicate matter. Are the U.S. military really ready to leave the Iraqis to their own devices? Can the new Iraqi army and police become the towering rock capable of keeping at bay ethnic and confessional differences? The matter implies a great deal of purely technical details. "We have known from the start that it is easy to enter in the war but very difficult to leave Iraq because of the fragile and complicated situation in the region," de Villepin said.
