> Before going to Iraq last week, I visited Israel and the Palestinian
> Authority. Israel has been the only genuine democracy in the region, but
> it is now getting some welcome company from the Iraqis and Palestinians who are in the midst of robust national legislative election campaigns,
> the Lebanese who have risen up in proud self-determination after the
> Hariri assassination to eject their Syrian occupiers (the Syrian- and
> Iranian-backed Hezbollah militias should be next), and the Kuwaitis,
> Egyptians and Saudis who have taken steps to open up their governments
> more broadly to their people. In my meeting with the thoughtful prime
> minister of Iraq, Ibrahim al-Jaafari, he declared with justifiable pride
> that his country now has the most open, democratic political system in the
> Arab world. He is right.
> In the face of terrorist threats and escalating violence, eight million
> Iraqis voted for their interim national government in January, almost 10
> million participated in the referendum on their new constitution in
> October, and even more than that are expected to vote in the elections for
> a full-term government on Dec. 15. Every time the 27 million Iraqis have
> been given the chance since Saddam was overthrown, they have voted for
> self-government and hope over the violence and hatred the 10,000
> terrorists offer them. Most encouraging has been the behavior of the Sunni
> community, which, when disappointed by the proposed constitution,
> registered to vote and went to the polls instead of taking up arms and
> going to the streets. Last week, I was thrilled to see a vigorous
> political campaign, and a large number of independent television stations
> and newspapers covering it.
>
> None of these remarkable changes would have happened without the coalition
> forces led by the U.S. And, I am convinced, almost all of the progress in
> Iraq and throughout the Middle East will be lost if those forces are
> withdrawn faster than the Iraqi military is capable of securing the
> country.
>
> The leaders of Iraq's duly elected government understand this, and they
> asked me for reassurance about America's commitment. The question is
> whether the American people and enough of their representatives in
> Congress from both parties understand this. I am disappointed by Democrats
> who are more focused on how President Bush took America into the war in
> Iraq almost three years ago, and by Republicans who are more worried about
> whether the war will bring them down in next November's elections, than
> they are concerned about how we continue the progress in Iraq in the
> months and years ahead.
>
> Here is an ironic finding I brought back from Iraq. While U.S. public
> opinion polls show serious declines in support for the war and increasing
> pessimism about how it will end, polls conducted by Iraqis for Iraqi
> universities show increasing optimism. Two-thirds say they are better off
> than they were under Saddam, and a resounding 82% are confident their
> lives in Iraq will be better a year from now than they are today. What a
> colossal mistake it would be for America's bipartisan political leadership
> to choose this moment in history to lose its will and, in the famous
> phrase, to seize defeat from the jaws of the coming victory.
>
> The leaders of America's military and diplomatic forces in Iraq, Gen.
> George Casey and Ambassador Zal Khalilzad, have a clear and compelling
> vision of our mission there. It is to create the environment in which
> Iraqi democracy, security and prosperity can take hold and the Iraqis
> themselves can defend their political progress against those 10,000
> terrorists who would take it from them.
>
>
>
> Does America have a good plan for doing this, a strategy for victory in
> Iraq? Yes we do. And it is important to make it clear to the American
> people that the plan has not remained stubbornly still but has changed
> over the years. Mistakes, some of them big, were made after Saddam was
> removed, and no one who supports the war should hesitate to admit that;
> but we have learned from those mistakes and, in characteristic American
> fashion, from what has worked and not worked on the ground. The
> administration's recent use of the banner "clear, hold and build"
> accurately describes the strategy as I saw it being implemented last week.
> We are now embedding a core of coalition forces in every Iraqi fighting
> unit, which makes each unit more effective and acts as a multiplier of our
> forces. Progress in "clearing" and "holding" is being made. The Sixth
> Infantry Division of the Iraqi Security Forces now controls and polices
> more than one-third of Baghdad on its own. Coalition and Iraqi forces have
> together cleared the previously terrorist-controlled cities of Fallujah,
> Mosul and Tal Afar, and most of the border with Syria. Those areas are now
> being "held" secure by the Iraqi military themselves. Iraqi and coalition
> forces are jointly carrying out a mission to clear Ramadi, now the most
> dangerous city in Al-Anbar province at the west end of the Sunni Triangle.
>
> Nationwide, American military leaders estimate that about one-third of the
> approximately 100,000 members of the Iraqi military are able to "lead the
> fight" themselves with logistical support from the U.S., and that that
> number should double by next year. If that happens, American military
> forces could begin a drawdown in numbers proportional to the increasing
> self-sufficiency of the Iraqi forces in 2006. If all goes well, I believe
> we can have a much smaller American military presence there by the end of
> 2006 or in 2007, but it is also likely that our presence will need to be
> significant in Iraq or nearby for years to come.
>
> The economic reconstruction of Iraq has gone slower than it should have,
> and too much money has been wasted or stolen. Ambassador Khalilzad is now
> implementing reform that has worked in Afghanistan--Provincial
> Reconstruction Teams, composed of American economic and political experts,
> working in partnership in each of Iraq's 18 provinces with its elected
> leadership, civil service and the private sector. That is the "build" part
> of the "clear, hold and build" strategy, and so is the work American and
> international teams are doing to professionalize national and provincial
> governmental agencies in Iraq.
>
> These are new ideas that are working and changing the reality on the
> ground, which is undoubtedly why the Iraqi people are optimistic about
> their future--and why the American people should be, too.
>
>
>
> I cannot say enough about the U.S. Army and Marines who are carrying most
> of the fight for us in Iraq. They are courageous, smart, effective,
> innovative, very honorable and very proud. After a Thanksgiving meal with
> a great group of Marines at Camp Fallujah in western Iraq, I asked their
> commander whether the morale of his troops had been hurt by the growing
> public dissent in America over the war in Iraq. His answer was insightful,
> instructive and inspirational: "I would guess that if the opposition and
> division at home go on a lot longer and get a lot deeper it might have
> some effect, but, Senator, my Marines are motivated by their devotion to
> each other and the cause, not by political debates."
> Thank you, General. That is a powerful, needed message for the rest of
> America and its political leadership at this critical moment in our
> nation's history. Semper Fi.
>
> Mr. Lieberman is a Democratic senator from Connecticut.