Bremer Article Highlights Progress, Mistakes

Tim J here.

One-time head of the Coalition Provisional Authority in Iraq, L. Paul Bremer, gives some interesting comment on the reconstruction in Iraq in THIS N.Y. TIMES ARTICLE. (there was no registration requirement when I was there).

He touches on just a few of the many complex difficulties in trying to rebuild, from the ground up, the economic, political and physical infrastructure of an entire country… one that had been ravaged by a ruthless dictator, grinding (yet tragically ineffectual) U.N. sanctions, and decades of war (with both Iran and the U.S.-led coalitions).

In all this, there is a balance to be struck between those who will admit no flaw in the U.S. effort there, and those who see it all as one ghastly mistake, or worse.

I see it as a job that needed doing sooner or later, and that no one else was going to do. I therefore disagree with the Buchananites who would have us withdraw into a fortified bunker within our borders and wait until we are invaded. I think the present world situation is far more like a game of chess than it is like a wrestling match. The reality of Islamo-fascism makes the old pattern of clashes between nation-states too simplistic a model. I don’t know (perhaps can’t know) whether this is ultimately a just war, but it can legitimately be argued either way.

That said, I think it is obvious that blunders were made in the aftermath of the initial military campaign. This happened because our enemy employed an old, but unexpected tactic, called "running away", for which we were not prepared. The Bush administration was geared up for a longer military conflict and had only a vague occupation plan. When they found themselves in downtown Baghdad a few weeks later, they were like a dog that has been chasing a car that suddenly stops… what do I do with it now?

Bremer’s article argues that real progress is being made, in spite of the obvious setbacks.

Pray for our troops. Pray for the people of Iraq.

GET THE STORY.