By By JOHN EBY / Dowagiac Daily News
Iraq "must walk through the door we opened for them" soon to "change this negative downward spiral."
"We can't walk through it for them. I believe we've got to push them through it. We've got to tell them that after a reasonable period of time, 'You folks have got to take responsibility for your own nation.' " U.S. Sen. Carl Levin, D-Mich., said Wednesday morning to a standing-room only crowd packed into the Southwestern Michigan College commons.
Levin opposed expanding the war on terror from Afghanistan in 2003 "because I felt it would lead to Western occupation of a Muslim country, which would unleash some very negative forces against us. I also did not believe when we went in that Iraq represented an imminent threat to us. I did not believe they were connected to al Qaeda. The administration made the argument over and over again to the point where people of the United States believed Saddam Hussein actually participated in the attack on America on 9/11. That is not what the intelligence said. Nonetheless, the majority of the American people, by the time we went to war in Iraq, believed it because of statements made by the administration before the war trying to connect Saddam Hussein to al Qaeda. The majority of the American people believed he attacked us or participated. If I believed that, I would have voted to go to war. I voted to go to war in Afghanistan because that's where al Qaeda was located, with the Taliban giving them protection."
The war has been "terribly and tragically mishandled," Levin argued. "I've seen up close and personal how we, in an arrogant way, disbanded the Iraqi army. The domestic army was accepted by the Iraqi people. That army was a threat to Saddam Hussein to the extent he had his own special Revolutionary Guards to protect him. It was a national army made up of all of the various sectarian factions. It could have helped preserve order. But in a very casual and ignorant way, the administration dismissed having the Iraqi army stay in place. That's just one of many mistakes that's been made."
But Levin came not to rehash blunders past, but to address the more relevant question of what the United States should do to extricate itself from an expensive quagmire.
"I believe the only way of maximizing the chances for success in Iraq," Levin said, "is to pressure Iraqis to take over their own nation. We cannot make the decision for them to have a nation in civil war. That's a choice only they can make. We've given them an opportunity no other country in the world would think about giving another country – throwing out a dictator at great cost to ourselves."
In addition to lives lost on both sides, the war costs $5 billion to $6 billion a month.
Levin defined a "reasonable" time table by recounting the unsuccessful resolution he pushed last July that American forces would begin "redeploying" from Iraq by the end of 2006.
"It didn't set any fixed timetable for all of our troops to be out," Levin explained, "but it was based on the fundamental belief that we have to change the dynamic in Iraq. We've got to force the Iraqis to understand and face reality. They've got to make the political compromises of sharing power and sharing oil resources. Those are the key issues, so all the groups in Iraq feel a stake in their future. The constitution they wrote did not succeed in doing that – and they knew that at the time they voted."
President George W. Bush needs to tell Iraq "the opposite" of his message. "The president has been saying, 'We're there as long as you need us. This requires patience.' The resolution was based on we're not there as long as you need us or you'll need us forever. And we're not patient. We're impatient with the Iraqi leadership failing to do something that only they can do," Levin said. "The only way out is to tell them we're not going to be their security blanket for the unlimited future. It's not an open-ended commitment. There's an ending point to this, and we set that in such a way that we can plan with the Iraqis to let them take over responsibility for their own nation. The Senate did not adopt our resolution," which garnered 40 votes, but only one Republican, even though "I know a number of Republicans believe what I'm saying is true."
Bush "has held up a false choice," in Levin's estimation. "He says there are two choices, stay the course or cut and run. There is a third option: change the course. Change the dynamic. I believe the only way to do that is to put pressure on Iraqis to take responsibility for their own nation. I don't see any other way of changing this negative downward spiral that we're in. Folks, things are not getting better, things are getting worse. At the rate we're going, we're going to have one of the worst months in terms of our casualties and Iraqi deaths than we've ever had in 3 1/2 years in Iraq. We've been in Iraq now longer than we fought World War II or Korea … 40 senators isn't going to force the Iraqis to face reality. Only the president can do that … 90 percent of Iraqis want us out of there."
Levin said during the October election recess he's traveling around Michigan to gauge public sentiment and to share his views with constituents, as he recently returned from his "sixth or seventh" visit to Iraq.
Levin, ranking Democrat on the Armed Services Committee, senses "a trend toward a change of direction. That change may translate (with the Nov. 7 election) in a change of leadership in both the House and Senate or either one. More likely in the House of Representatives. Republicans would have to lose six of their current seats to lose control."
Iraq "is not the only reason" Levin feels "winds of change in the air. A number of domestic policies are also very much at issue," he said. "This nation is building up debt at a record level, $300 billion a year. You students are going to be burdened by that debt, which now averages $28,000 an American. We're in the middle of a war we're not paying for, which is irresponsible. The president proposed cutting the education budget for the first time in the history of the Department of Education. At the same time the president wants us to make his tax cuts permanent. That is a fiscally irresponsible policy and I believe it is morally unacceptable in the middle of a war to be talking about tax cuts, most of which are going to upper brackets and are not going to help average Americans."
Levin said those "wrong policies" convince Americans that "something is out of kilter. The "incompetence" and "continued corruption" of how programs are administered was symbolized by Katrina. "Four representatives now – all Republicans, but that's not the point – are indicted, resigned or convicted. The public has a great sense of unease, I believe. There's a real desire that there be a change of direction in the country."