Under Fire
As President Bush draws up a new Iraq battle plan, it's clear he will have a fight on his hands if he wants more troops
December drew to a close as the deadliest month in two years for American soldiers in Iraq. At his ranch in Crawford, Texas, President Bush gathered his national security team–including new Defense Secretary Bob Gates–to draw up what may well be a last-chance strategy to turn back the tide of chaos. It couldn't have lightened the mood any that morning to glance at the Washington Post's front page: "Ford Disagreed With Bush About Invading Iraq." Former President Gerald Ford, who died last week at age 93, criticized Bush's rationale for the war in a posthumously published July 2004 interview with the Post's Bob Woodward. Said Ford, "I don't think I would have gone to war."
For a current president who famously doesn't like to look back, Ford's delayed critique may mean little, but it raises the stakes a bit higher for Bush's effort to sell the American people on whatever he decides to do next in Iraq. With concern growing almost daily about U.S. soldiers and marines facing hostile fire and increasingly powerful roadside bombs, caught in the middle of what looks to many like an Iraqi civil war, Bush faces the most daunting challenge of his presidency. In urban Baghdad–not just in the insurgent badlands of Al Anbar province–some streets are so regularly booby-trapped with roadside bombs that they are treated as no-go zones for U.S. patrols.
After making it clear that he has his own no-go zones (namely, opening a dialogue with Iran and Syria and considering a phased withdrawal of U.S. troops), Bush is expected to release his new plan for Iraq within days. It will very likely include an economic package that will fund microloans for small businesses and jobs in neighborhoods that have been targeted by military strikes–elements of classic counterinsurgency strategy that weave economic and political incentives together with armed measures. But much of the chatter–and the real political stakes–surround a so-called surge of U.S. troops, enough to make the total force in Baghdad larger than at any time since the war began. That would, the thinking goes, improve security in the city of some 6 million and give the Iraqi government more time to take charge if it can. But it would be hard to pull off. "The big question," says one U.S. commander at Baghdad headquarters, "is what do they want us to do with these troops, exactly, that we're not doing already?"
Wordplay. In Washington, the word surge is increasingly accompanied by something akin to virtual quotation marks. It's more politically palatable than "escalation," with its echoes of Vietnam, and carries the implication of limited duration, or an ebb. But new troops will be on the ground for a while. In a widely circulated PowerPoint presentation, Frederick Kagan, a neoconservative military historian at the American Enterprise Institute, touts the benefits of a surge in a "plan for success," adding that a minimum of 30,000 troops should be sent to the country for "18 months or so." "That's not a surge," says one military official. "It's a troop increase, plain and simple."
Whatever it's called, Washington is gearing up for a serious set-to over the issue, with Democrats arguing that anything like a surge ignores the message sent by voters in November's midterm elections. John Edwards, who last week announced that he is running for president in 2008, weighed in against sending more troops, as did Joseph Biden, the Senate Foreign Relations Committee chair who also plans to throw his hat into the presidential ring. Ditto many of the big-name Democrats in Congress–Hillary Rodham Clinton, Barack Obama, John Kerry, and Nancy Pelosi among them–while GOP Sen. John McCain and independent Sen. Joseph Lieberman support a "surge" strategy.
If he goes that way, President Bush will have to contend with the strain additional troops would put on American military forces already nearing their breaking point. Those who think more soldiers could make a difference in Iraq argue that even 30,000 troops wouldn't be enough and note pointedly that the U.S. military simply cannot provide more. While Congress is widely expected to vote to expand the size of the Army and Marine Corps next year, such a move would have no impact on the conflict now underway in Iraq. "Those bodies aren't going to show up in battalions until 2009," says one Pentagon official.
Troops, too, are expensive–a rule of thumb is that it takes $100,000 to find, train, and equip each soldier. Expanding the overall size of the force could add some $6 billion to the military budget. It's a small price to pay, many say, at a time when the cost of the Iraq war is more than $6 billion per month. The greater concern is that troops are not getting any easier to recruit. "The big question is, are the American people really going to cough up another 50,000 soldiers and marines?" says the Pentagon official. "I have my doubts." Much of that recruitment ability, many say, hinges on the decisions the president makes in the days to come.
On the ground. At Camp Loyalty, south of Baghdad's Sadr City area, Capt. David Eastburn's company conducts daily convoys through neighborhoods that, troops here say, overwhelmingly support the Shiite Jaish al-Mahdi (JAM), also known as the Mahdi Army militia. Eastburn says the troops in his company are stretched thin, often conducting multiple patrols a day. But he and his soldiers say they're doubtful military solutions–even more troops–will fix what's wrong. "I don't feel it'll really change much," says Lt. Jonathan Martin. "If we are here for 18 months or 10 years, I don't think it's going to make much of a difference."
As they drive through East Baghdad's religiously mixed Karada neighborhood, the troops routinely pass buildings plastered with the image of the anti-American Shiite cleric and Mahdi Army leader Moqtada al-Sadr. "There is way more militia activity than we were briefed on before we arrived," says Eastburn, who adds that when American soldiers ask each other how they are doing, a standard answer around the base has become "JAM-tastic."
On a recent trip through Karada, many children waved at the passing convoy; others flipped the bird. Often, the kids throw rocks–"big ones," says Eastburn–that sometimes hit humvee gunners in the head. These days, says Eastburn, "the safety of our guys is the primary concern." The biggest day-to-day threats, though, are improvised explosive devices–the deadly roadside bombs. Many of those in this neighborhood come from Iran, says Eastburn, including some able to pierce even armored humvees.
After a recent mortar attack on the base, soldiers arrived at the source of the shooting to find scorched earth in the middle of a field where two soccer games were being played. No one had seen a thing. Many residents "shun us for their own protection," regardless of how they feel about the American presence, he adds. "I don't blame them. The strong hold the militia has makes it impossible for us to all work together."
Training. The troops echo the concerns of headquarters in Baghdad, where officials hope that enhanced military training teams will speed improvements in the capabilities of Iraqi forces–and enable an exit by U.S. forces. But even as they face that task, they are loath to call for more troops. "My sense is we have enough stuff to do with what we got," says a senior military official in Baghdad. "The issue is authorization–authorization to do what you want to do with that force. What can you do with these forces?"
One possible use for more troops, according to senior military officials in Baghdad, is taking on the Mahdi Army base of Sadr City. "Until you clean that out, life will just keep on going the way it is," says the senior official. "That's just as clear as day." But politically it is a dicey prospect with potentially dire consequences. Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki relies on the support of Sadr, and he has balked at past efforts to move U.S. forces into the area. It could be a rough slog as well-American forces encountered some of their toughest fighting early on in Sadr City. It could also further galvanize Shiites against the U.S. presence in Iraq.
As the troops here conduct daily patrols, some are aware that their fate is in other hands. "It's all in the mind of one person that we're waiting on to make this decision," says one U.S. soldier in Baghdad. In the meantime, says another, "we're not losing, but we're not winning. We're stuck." Lt. Gen. Peter Chiarelli, the former No. 2 commander in Iraq, told a handful of reporters in his final day on the job last month: "We watch, and that's it. Our days are filled with plenty to do. It's just so much background noise–the president makes the ultimate decision."
Anna Mulrine reported this story from Iraq and Washington.
This story appears in the January 8, 2007 print edition of U.S. News & World Report.