LAT: Surge fails to bring needed reconciliation to Iraq Nick Juliano

Published: Tuesday September 4, 2007





Print This Email This As the Bush administration prepares to present its version of "progress" associated with the president's troop surge that began seven months ago, independent assessments show the surge has failed to catalyze political developments necessary for the country's future. The Los Angeles Times reports that Iraq's parliament has passed none of the major legislation Washington had expected it to approve. The 28,500 additional troops who have filed into the country since February also have failed to substantially decrease civilian deaths in Iraq, and more Iraqis are fleeing their homes now than before the surge began. The best possible summation of the surge's results indicate it has created a "holding pattern" in the country, which is wholly dependent on US troops to maintain what few decreases in violence have been observed. "The military offensive has temporarily suppressed, or in many cases dislocated, armed groups," Joost Hiltermann of the International Crisis Group told the Times. "Once the military surge peters out, which it will if there is no progress on the political front, these groups will pop right back up and start going at each other's, and civilians', throats again." President Bush and his allies point to Al Anbar provence as an example of the surge's success. Sunni insurgents who previously targeted US troops have shifted allegiances and now fight al Qaeda in Iraq operatives alongside the US. But, as the Times notes, "There is no indication that progress made there can be replicated on a grand enough scale to have a nationwide effect." As Congress prepares to hear from US troop commander Gen. David Petraeus and Ambassador Ryan Crocker next week, debate is expected to address whether the US should maintain its troop increase. However, reports have indicated that the military does not have enough soldiers and Marines to maintain post-surge levels much beyond next spring. The Washington Post on Tuesday also examined the surge's results and found "that recent improvements are sometimes tenuous, temporary, even illusory." In Baghdad's Dora market, military officials point to the fact 349 stores have reopened, but that is less than half the 850 shops the market supported before the US invasion. Even some soldiers are skeptical of the progress claims. "Personally, I think it's a false representation,"Staff Sgt. Josh Campbell told the Post, referring to the portrayal of the Dora market as an emblem of the surge's success. "But what can I say? I'm just doing my job and don't ask questions."



