Shifting the Burden to the Iraqi Governing Council

JIM LEHRER:

Now turning the Iraq war over to the Iraqis. President Bush addressed that issue in a speech to the Heritage Foundation this afternoon in Washington. Here is some of what he said.

PRESIDENT GEORGE W. BUSH:

The long-term security of Iraq will be assured by the Iraqis themselves; 118,000 Iraqis are now serving as police officers and border guards, civil defense personnel and in the facilities protection service.

Iraq's security forces join in operations with our troops and they patrol towns and cities independently. Some 700 troops are now serving in the new Iraqi army. Thousands more are being trained and we expect to see 35,000 Iraqi troops in the field by the end of next year.

Increasingly the Iraqi people are assuming the responsibilities and the risks of protecting their own country. And their willingness to accept these duties is one of the surest signs that the Iraqis want freedom and that the Iraqis are headed towards self-government. (Applause)

Under our strategy increasing authority is being transferred to the Iraqi people. The Iraqi Governing Council has appointed ministers who are responsible for the day-to- day operations of the Iraqi government. The council has also begun the process that will lead to a new constitution. No friend or enemy should doubt– Iraq liberty will find a lasting home.

Iraqis are a proud people and they want their national independence. And they can see the difference between those who are attacking their country and those who are helping to build it. Our coalition is training new police. The terrorists are trying to kill them. We're protecting pipelines and power plants for the good of the Iraqi people. The terrorists are trying to blow them up.

We're turning authority over to Iraqi leaders. The terrorists are trying to assassinate them. We're offering aid and self-rule and hope for the future. The terrorists offer nothing but oppression and death. The vast majority of Iraqis know exactly what is going on in their country today. Having seen the worst of tyranny, the Iraqi people will reject the return of tyranny. (Applause)

JIM LEHRER:

More on the Iraq security issue now from Bing West, an assistant defense secretary in the Reagan administration. During the Iraq war, he traveled with the Marines to Baghdad and wrote a book about it. He was a Marine officer during the Vietnam War. And Robert Orr, he was on the National Security Council staff in the Clinton administration. He was on a Pentagon postwar assessment team in Iraq this summer. He's now at the Kennedy School at Harvard University.

Mr. Orr, what do you think of the current push to quickly hand over security responsibilities to the Iraqis?

ROBERT ORR:

I think this is absolutely the right goal. The problem is the way that we're going about it. We're rushing it so aggressively that, in fact, we're looking like this is turning into a cut-and-run strategy instead of a success strategy.

JIM LEHRER:

In what way are we pushing it too quickly, are we going too fast?

ROBERT ORR:

The president today named 118,000 Iraqis in uniform. When I traveled around Iraq over the summer, there were only a few thousand. One has to question what kind of training these folks have been through when, in fact, they've been, at most, one month worth of training. If someone has a life-and-death decision to make on whether or not to protect an oil pipeline, whether or not to stand and fight to protect a ministry, a couple weeks of training just isn't going to do it. We need to be ready to stand at their side for a while yet.

JIM LEHRER:

Bing West, has it gone too quickly? Is it going about it the wrong way?

BING WEST:

Well, I too was there this summer. And what I saw was the 101st and the Fourth Infantry Division out there with the Iraqis, and I think the pace is just about right because we're not facing large battalions. We don't need long training. What they do need is confidence. And working with our troops is the best way of getting that confidence. Our Army has done that in other wars at other times so I just see this as a natural progression. I see it if anything, as maybe a little bit too slow.

JIM LEHRER:

Too slow? In what way is it too slow?

BING WEST:

Well, I think that you're going to see an acceleration on the part of our forces over there to combine more with the Iraqis because last summer many of our forces had to spend an awful lot of time on the basics of governance and restoring infrastructure, but that's behind them now. So they have more of an opportunity to spend more time training on the job with the Iraqis.

JIM LEHRER:

What about Mr. Orr's point about the training that you can put uniforms on people but until you train them properly, you've still got a terrible risk and a terrible problem.

BING WEST:

Well, I was in the combined action program in Vietnam. And the best way of giving confidence to somebody for those ten-second fire fights is to watch those who do it well and be combined with them. That's what our soldiers are very, very good at.

So I would argue that one of the fastest ways of instilling confidence is exactly what we're doing over there now: Working with them on the job, not sending them off to some formal training school where they're divorced from us but rather learning from our soldiers right on the job.

JIM LEHRER:

Mr. Orr, what about that?

ROBERT ORR:

I absolutely agree that what we do need to do is to have our folks on the ground long enough to be able to have them work with the Iraqis. But all of a sudden we're hearing about troop withdrawals and timetables for troop withdrawal that seem to be driven more by a calendar here in the United States rather than the reality on the ground in Iraq.

When I talked with soldiers, American Marines, soldiers on the ground, they said that they thought they would need to be there a couple years to be able to do joint patrols to get to the level of enough confidence that the Iraqis could do all this themselves. I don't see anyone kind of talking about that realistic time frame right now.

JIM LEHRER:

A couple of years, Mr. West?

BING WEST:

Gee, we send people for training for six or eight weeks in our system. And they're not facing big battalions in Iraq. The New York Times had it right in a story today about an Iraqi school teacher when he said, "I don't dare speak out." This is a campaign of intimidation by some thugs, some terrorists, some resistors. I would imagine four to six months from now, we will be seeing an entirely different situation. It doesn't take years.

JIM LEHRER:

Four to six months you think that the Iraqis could be taking care of their own security for the most part?

BING WEST:

Well, for the most part, I would be a little bit careful about that but I would say I would expect six months from now if we were having this conversation to see substantial changes on the ground. They already have the police out there. The next structure that they have to put on top of that is the militia, a constabulary that can help the police but we're not talking about large battalions and I think we can get on with this at a pretty fast rate.

JIM LEHRER:

Mr. Orr, when you look ahead four to six months what's the worst case scenario you see?

ROBERT ORR:

Certainly the worst case scenario would be we have a few more major incidents either where Americans are killed in large numbers, and we overreact and kill a number of Iraqis. Another disaster scenario would be some lack of confidence in the Shia community or internal divisions in the Shia community turns an entire part of the country into a civil war zone that is currently actually looking fairly calm.

So there are plenty of scenarios that could produce real problems for us. I just think it's premature to be talking about troop withdrawals. Mr. West was right about one very important issue. This is all about confidence and making sure that the Iraqis confidently take their destiny into their own hands. If we are starting to talk about withdrawal now, that doesn't exactly give them the kind of confidence they need to go on risking their lives every day.

JIM LEHRER:

What about that, Mr. West? Mr. Orr said that a couple times. This talk about troop withdrawal, get the troops out in six months or start withdrawing, taking troops or the U.S. troop strength down next year, et cetera, is sending the wrong message to the Iraqi people?

BING WEST:

Well, I think we have to ask what is the mission? And the mission of our big battalions no longer is facing big battalions. The mission is now down to dealing with a small area in Iraq where those who are resisting us are intimidating some of the Iraqis inside the cities and inside the towns.

For us just to be driving up and down the highway or something in presence patrols, that doesn't make too much of a difference in that situation. And our troops don't speak Iraqi. They're not in there every day speaking on the street the way the Iraqi police are. So I think reasonably when Gen. Abizaid and our other generals look at this and they say, "We don't need all these big battalions"– that seems to make a lot of sense. We don't….

JIM LEHRER:

What about Mr. Orr's point that he wasn't predicting this but he was saying a possibility here that this thing could quickly get out of hand if there are huge incidents of violence and they continue then the American troops are going to have to start reacting strong… more strongly than they have thus far. Iraqi civilians could start dying. We've got a real civil war on our hands.

BING WEST:

Gee, what I've been seeing though….

JIM LEHRER:

It's not that?

BING WEST:

It's a trend that's going the other direction. And that is what we are seeing is the use of high explosives in cars to indiscriminately kill many people. But that's a strategy of weakness. Those aren't large fire fights. There's no evidence that the Shias in the South, for instance, are organizing a rebellion. In fact things are progressing very well in the South and in the North. So while anything can always go wrong, if you look at the trends, I think the trends look pretty solid.

JIM LEHRER:

Pretty solid, Mr. Orr, to you?

ROBERT ORR:

I think the issue of the different parts of the country is a good one. This is not one reality in Iraq. At the same time, I think the trends we need to look at different trends — not just the security trends within the so-called triangle but we do need to look at the trends in the South and see what's happening within the Shia community. The other big issue that I think we need to look at in terms of trends is what's happening politically and economically.

People are talking about "Iraqification" of security. We should be talking about Iraqification of politics and economics as well. I don't think we're making too much progress there. The Iraqi Governing Council is having lots of problems. Four and five people are showing up for meetings. Many of them are at any given day are here in the United States speaking before groups in the United States. They need to be running their affairs in Iraq. I think we need to get serious about making sure that Iraqis have their political future in their own hands not only at the national level but at the provincial and local levels. And again, that's going to require some time.

JIM LEHRER:

Mr. West, how do you see the politics of this, the political side of this equation?

BING WEST:

I think it all does start with security. I see the trends in the Shia area as being positive. Sure, they're fractious but that's democracy. It's when people are intimidated, as they are in Fallujah and other places, that you have a more serious problem.

I think you have to bring security first. I think that that is steadily moving forward but that the next movement absolutely has to be the Iraqification, if you will– a terrible word — but some way of getting the Iraqis at the police level and the militia level to have more confidence. The best way of instilling that is to have them work with our soldiers.

JIM LEHRER:

And you think that the politics will then flow naturally out of that, out of security…

BING WEST:

Absolutely.

JIM LEHRER:

You agree?

BING WEST:

Yes, I do.

JIM LEHRER:

What about it, Mr. Orr? Should the politics come first or do they have to come together?

ROBERT ORR:

No, I actually agree that security needs to come first but that is not at the exclusion of the politics. These have to go hand in hand. The level of confidence that we're talking about Iraqis having for their own security needs to be translated into a level of confidence in their politics, in their ability to run their own affairs. Right now a lot of Iraqis are not terribly confident about that.

They don't see who their future leaders are going to be. And they don't see a process that they're going to have input into to ensure that they have the kind of leadership they want. That's why we need to get down to the provincial level and to the local level. Our forces have done a remarkable job at that level, but as we start seeing troop pullouts there's no CPA presence in sufficient numbers out in those areas to help advise on the politics and to make sure that that's linked up with the nation.

JIM LEHRER:

Okay gentlemen, we have to leave it there. Thank you both very much.