The Sunday Scranton Times Tribune April 06, 2003
Analysts: Prepare for Years in Iraq
By Christopher J. Kelly
After the shock.
After the awe.
After the bombs, the sieges, the fires and the fighting.
After Saddam.
While opinions vary on the duration and cost of the invasion of Iraq, most government and civilian observers believe a U.S. and allied victory is just a matter of time.
But Americans who think the battle for a free, democratic Iraq will end when the shooting stops are in for a rude awakening, experts say. The Bush administration has projected a postwar occupation of anywhere from one to three years, but analysts say it will be at least five years -- and perhaps as many as 10 -- before all U.S. troops leave Iraq, if a complete pullout happens at all.
"The White House and the Pentagon are trying to project two things: It will take as long as it takes and it won't take long," says Patrick Garrett, a military analyst for GlobalSecurity.org, a defense policy think tank based in Alexandria, Va.
"(Occupation) is going to take at least five years, maybe more," he says, and it's possible there will always be U.S. troops in Iraq. "It's possible that a decade down the road U.S. forces could be completely gone from there, but I don't see it happening any time soon."
Gretchen Van Dyke, Ph.D., an associate professor of political science at the University of Scranton, agrees with Mr. Garrett. A specialist in international relations, Dr. Van Dyke says most colleagues she's talked to are expecting a long, volatile occupation.
"I've seen predictions of 15 to 20 years," she says. "When you're talking about building a democracy, you're not talking about something that's done overnight. It's not going to be easy. (In much of Iraq) we are going to be looked at as an occupying force that did a great deal of damage both physically and psychologically."
Such sentiment is especially likely in southern Iraq, where a 1991 uprising was brutally crushed by Saddam, Dr. Van Dyke says. The U.S. encouraged the revolt, but didn't deliver on a promise of military aid. As a result, many southern Iraqis may have a hard time trusting the U.S. this time around, she says.
There are several early keys to building trust and convincing Iraqis that U.S. troops are liberators rather than conquerors, Dr. Van Dyke said. Acting quickly to remove the physical debris of war, she says, can "ease the psyche" of the people being occupied. Leaving the wreckage as a constant reminder of defeat can "harden the people" against the occupying force, she says.
After World War II, the U.S. European Recovery Act, better known as the "Marshall Plan," pumped billions in financial and humanitarian aid into war-torn Europe, rebuilding the economies and infrastructures of nations like Germany, which was divided between Russian and Allied control after the war.
In West Germany, the allies were quick to clear rubble and restore damaged buildings, roads and other infrastructure, Dr. Van Dyke says. In communist-controlled East Germany, however, the Russians made sure Germans didn't forget the history that caused their conquest.
"There was still rubble from World War II when the Berlin Wall came down (in 1989)," Dr. Van Dyke says. "The Russians left it to remind Germans what their government had done."
U.S. and Allied officials must also strive to include Iraqis in the process of selecting their postwar government, Dr. Van Dyke says, if they want to convince the people that the war is about liberation and not conquest.
"(Leaders) can't be American choices," she says, paraphrasing New York Times columnist and Middle East expert Thomas Friedman, "they must be Iraqi choices."
No matter how successful the Bush administration is at convincing Iraqis that U.S. troops are present for their benefit, Dr. Van Dyke and Mr. Garrett agree that the peace will be kept by force of arms, at least for the foreseeable future. The trouble with the foreseeable future in terms of occupation, however, is that it's followed by the unforeseeable future.
U.S. troops were deployed as peacekeepers in Bosnia-Herzegovina in 1996, and Kosovo in 1999. President Clinton said U.S. forces would be out of the Balkans "in a couple of years," Mr. Garrett says, but they are still there. They won't be leaving any time soon, most observers say, because they are the only thing standing between peace and war.
"The Balkans don't look like they'll ever stop being a problem," Mr. Garrett says of the historically volatile region, an assessment echoed by soldiers of the Scranton-based 109th Mechanized Infantry of the Pennsylvania Army National Guard.
More than 300 soldiers from the 109th returned in March from a six-month United Nations peacekeeping tour in Bosnia, and the majority say the country would implode if there was no U.N. presence to enforce the peace.
"Everywhere we went, they (Bosnians) told us that," says Spc. Doug Bean, 19, of Simpson. "If we left, they said the war would start right back up again."
There are still 37,000 U.S. troops stationed in South Korea, charged with guarding the border between the South Koreans and their communist neighbors to the north. Placed there since the cease-fire that ended hostilities in 1953, U.S. Troops, Mr. Garrett says, were supposed to remain "until the end of the war." Because no peace treaty was signed, he says, the U.S. is at least figuratively still at war with North Korea.
U.S. troops in South Korea "may be relocated to North Korea sometime in the very near future," Mr. Garrett says, alluding to growing tensions between North Korea and Washington.
"President Bush campaigned on the idea of bringing troops home," he says. "Then he got in and people like Colin Powell said, 'You can't do that. We have interests in these areas and we don't want to see them blow up again.'"
There are about 8,000 troops now in Afghanistan, charged mainly with protecting the fledgling government of new president Hamid Karzai and chasing down remnants of the deposed Taliban regime, Mr. Garrett says. The U.S. presence is likely to continue indefinitely, he says, and could evolve into a strategic relationship like the post-World War II occupations of Japan and Germany.
There are still 47,000 U.S. troops in Japan and 71,000 in Germany, Mr. Garrett says. While there is sometimes tension between U.S. troops and their hosts, they remain a welcome presence for a variety of reasons, Mr. Garrett says.
"No matter how much the leaders of host countries scream about the presence of foreign troops to their domestic constituents, they enjoy having the U.S. forces there," he says.
Aside from the obvious economic benefits, Mr. Garrett says, host countries welcome a U.S. presence because it "shows a relationship with the U.S." and provides an important "human aspect" that increases security.
"Take Germany, for instance," he says. "If something happens to Germany, it's going to happen to U.S. soldiers, too," so America would be likely to aid in any attack on Germany.
Maintaining a permanent U.S. presence in Iraq is likely attractive to U.S. defense planners, Mr. Garrett says, particularly in light of President Bush's inclusion of Iran in his "axis of evil" and Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld's recent wrangling with neighboring Syria.
"Iraq is a strategic crossroads," he says. "Using Afghanistan as a model, (U.S. forces) are getting access to bases there that they never had access to. They're not just going to give those up.
"Iraq is the perfect staging area for a strike at Syria, and the mullahs in Iran are probably looking nervously at the West now, too."
While British Prime Minister Tony Blair is pushing for United Nations involvement in the rebuilding of Iraq, the Bush administration has been cool to the idea so far. In the end, Mr. Garrett expects the United Nations to play an important role in postwar Iraq.
"To some degree it will have to be (involved)," he says. "The U.N. has much greater depth and has spent much more time thinking about how to put a country back together."
U.N. involvement in postwar Iraq, however, would require a vote from the Security Council to go forward. Security Council members Russia, France, Germany and China have said they will not take any action that legitimizes what they believe is an unjustified attack on Iraq.
If the Security Council blocks U.N. involvement, Mr. Garrett says, "that's really sticking it to the U.S. The U.S. will have to pay for the whole war and rebuilding everything they blew up."
Whoever gets stuck with the bill for the war, the burden of the occupation will likely fall on the shoulders of U.S. troops, Mr. Garrett says. Nearly half of U.S. forces are Guard and Reserve, according to the Department of Defense. Mr. Garrett says that the numbers -- along with a growing Pentagon policy of "outsourcing" noncombat responsibilities -- suggest citizen soldiers will likely have a large role in keeping the peace in postwar Iraq.
"They have to do it," Mr. Garrett says of the Pentagon outsourcing. "They don't have enough fighting force (to commit regulars to peacekeeping)."
While the majority of Bosnians have welcomed the stabilizing presence of American troops, Dr. Van Dyke says most Iraqis aren't likely to roll out the red carpet, at least early on. Even if the average Iraqi comes to see the Americans as liberators, terrorists will strive to destroy any U.S.-led peace.
"It's going to be a place where American soldiers are going to face attacks from terrorist groups," she says, using the example of the Oct. 23, 1983, attack on U.S. Marines deployed as peacekeepers in Beirut, Lebanon. A suicide bomber drove a truck packed with explosives into a Marine base, killing 241 American servicemen. The attack was carried out by Hezbollah.
Facing massive public pressure, President Reagan pulled U.S. forces out of Lebanon three months after the tragedy.
"It's not going to be easy," Dr. Van Dyke says of shaping Iraq after Saddam. "It's going to be a very dangerous place for a very long time."
Copyright © 2003, Scranton Times Tribune
