Independence Days

It's hard to believe, but today finally marks the beginning of the end of America's front line military role in Iraq.

Prime Minister Nouri Al Maliki has named today, June 30th, 2009, an "Iraqi Independence Day" of sorts, a national holiday which he said would celebrate the "great victory" of Iraqis who have repulsed the foreign occupiers (aka their American liberators). With fireworks filling the night skies over Baghdad, all American combat troops are moving out of the major cities and towns, and, ready or not, the Iraqi military and police are taking charge - with plenty of American trainers in tow just in case.

It has now been over six years since President Bush stood in front of the "Mission Accomplished" banner, over $1 trillion since we were told the war would pay for itself, over 4,300 American lives lost since it was proclaimed we would be "greeted as liberators." That's the war from the American perspective.

Last month, I had the chance to see a different perspective as part of a Mercy Corps fact finding trip in Damascus, Syria, which is home to about 500,000 Iraqi refugees. Mercy Corps provides the refugees there with computer job training skills, but the Syrian government, terrified that this latest generation of refugees will stay in their nation, have instituted a $4,000 fine on any business which hires an Iraqi. None of the refugees we met wanted to return to Iraq; their lives as they knew them there were over. They wanted to start over again, in Europe or North America - in nations that are no more likely to welcome them than the Syrians. All wars have many unintended consequences.

It has been almost three years since Democratic primary voters in Connecticut stood up and changed the national conversation on Iraq by demanding a change in course. As the violence there has subsided, sadly the warring factions have not used the lull to make the tough political compromises necessary for lasting stability. Prime Minister Al Maliki has still not been able to draw up a just division of the oil revenues between Kurds and Sunnis and Shias, he has commandeered the military and been loath to include Sunnis in a national force, and he has been slower still to pay the Sunni Awakening councils whose allegiances could flip again. Still, with Iran distracted and the Iraqi national military stronger than ever, Al Maliki may be able to enforce a fragile peace - for now.

The tragedy of Iraq still lies in its origins - the fact that we rushed into a war of choice when we had so many other options. Hans Blix once told me that UN inspectors would have been able to verify that there were no weapons of mass destruction if they had only a couple more months to do their work in Iraq. Six years later, every day that passes is further confirmation that the war was indeed a massive strategic blunder, unhinging the delicate balance of power between Baath/Sunni Iraq and Shia Iran, sapping American resources and will before our mission in Afghanistan was complete, and compromising many of our core values and strategic relationships around the world. Nor did borrowing $1 trillion from the Chinese to pay for the war do much for America's economic independence or stability.

"It is easier to stay out than get out," Connecticut's own Mark Twain once wrote. And America's measured withdrawal from Iraqi cities, and then from Iraq, may indeed be messy. But our redeployment is at the direction of the Iraqi government, which represents a sovereign state beginning to assert itself, and that is something we can all cheer and support. This week, it is Independence Day in both Iraq and America, a day with very different meanings in each country. Iraqis may harbor private misgivings and display public bravura as we redeploy, but they know as well as we do that it is well past time. And this Independence Day, America will finally begin bringing home our troops to the hero's welcome that they all deserve.

Comments

[Tellecter]

There was a reason you lost in CT -- and this is it. Can't you see how Iraq has changed. Granted, war is a messy situation -- but it has created amazing possibilities that would never have been in place without it. The sad truth is that the former state of Iraq was a tyrannical dictatorship.

Despite the cost, the US has given the Iraqi people a possibility that they never had before. They didn't have a chance to make any difference under Hussein -- and now they will. The US will also have an ally in the region -- something we never had before.

Sometimes you need to do the heavy lifting -- and sometimes you throw out your back in the process. Here, the US had pains -- no doubt. But we did the lifting and created something that has a true possibility to work for the world -- and the Iraqi people.

[kylennblack]

Hundreds of thousands of Iraqis were killed and millions permanently displaced just so the US could get access to their oil.

No, it wasn't worth it.

[JBCinSD]

Where does it end, Tellecter? North Korea, for example, has a tyrannical dictator - shall we do some heavy lifting there, too? Shall we "liberate" the people of Syria, Egypt, Zimbabwe? What on earth makes you think it is the job of our young men and women to die in that pursuit? Who decides who is a dictator?

While Iraq is surely better off without Hussein, the price in blood and treasure has been huge for them as well. The brains have largely left the country and what is left is a thousand-year-old religious squabble, neither caused nor solved by our war.

While war is sometimes justified, Ned was and is right that this one wasn't. Your statement that we now have an "ally in the region" may be wishful thinking, time will tell. I have to think there are much better and smarter ways to win loyalty and respect.

[1849]

...but Iraqi oil was sold to the highest bidder. Did we go to liberate the people or the oil?

http://english.aljazeera.net/news/middleeast/2009/06/200963093615637434.html

[LMPE]

June 30 was also the Belgian Congo's independence day...unti­l the US collaborated with Belgium to overthrow Patrice Lumumba.

[diak0n0s]

How strange we don't hear of all those killed this week alone in Iraq in bombings.

And whatever you do, don't bring up President Obama's escalation of the war in Afganistan, or the growing civilian casualties.

[LeeCalif]

Yes. Run again !

[wrabbitt]

Lets send politicians in uniforms to the next hot spot, that should kill two birds with one stone!

[susanai]

I agree wholeheartedly, but the republicans HAVE to be on the front line.

[whoa20]

Run for senate again, Ned!

[dannneeboy]

Ned, I hope you are the next governor of our great state of Connecticut. Please don't hire hire the people who did a horrible job of running your last campaign. Tom Swan, John Murphy , Rachel Koteen.

[Prattvictory2]

Don't be so selfish America needs Ned in the Senate.

[kabulpress]

Let's accelerate bringing the troops home from Iraq. They are powerless now, and we continue to funnel billions into Iraq. It is a great disappointment that our military is forced to eat humble pie daily, sitting in their barracks until summoned by Iraq. What the heck are 150,000 troops doing in Iraq now? Why can we afford that but fire thousands of teachers across the U.S. What kind of change is this? What do people in the Pentagon do to earn their salaries? Nobody knows.

[LMPE]

Iraq would be a lot more independent today had the US never installed Saddam Hussein in the first place.

[Randian]

No, it would be Iran

[Pucky]

!!

??

We didn't install Hussein.

[NoMoFearNoMoHate]

Study your history kiddies...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saddam_Hussein_%E2%80%93_United_States_relations

[marignymitch]

Mr Lamont:

If you think this is the beginning of the end of US occupation and control of Iraq I have a drowned major city in Louisiana I'd like to sell you. We do the bidding of the oil and war industries. Remember? That means this is the the end of the first phase and beginning of the second phase of US occupation and control of Iraq.

[marignymitch]

PS

I hope you beat the tar outta Lieberman (I-Israel) next run.

[JudiBug]

In an interview with Time in 1998 regarding why we didn't remove Saddam, George H W Bush lamented , "We were concerned about the long-term balance of power at the head of the Gulf. Trying to eliminate Saddam, extending the ground war into an occupation of Iraq, would have violated our guideline about not changing objectives in midstream, engaging in "mission creep," and would have incurred incalculable human and political costs. Apprehending him was probably impossible. We had been unable to find Noriega in Panama, which we knew intimately.

We would have been forced to occupy Baghdad and, in effect, rule Iraq."

I can only say Hurrah for the sovereignty of Iraq.

[stryker]

Funny how it was Bush I's advisor, dick cheney who told bush that the ME would be in chaos if we removed hussein. But that was before cheney became the head of Haliburton and found out how much money it could make backing a made-up war.

[veracity]

Thank you, Mr. Lamont, for throwing so much of your time & treasure into the fight to WREST AMERICAN democracy BACK from the corporate pooh-bahs & neo-cons/n­eo-confeds who thought they were entitled to shove "you're with us or against us" dictatorial demagoguery down our throats.

Yours (your 2006 Dem. Primary campaign victory against Senator Lieberman) was THE FIRST REAL genuine "Democratic" push-back, in the 6 dreadful years since the Scalia court stole the election (Bush vs Gore) from nearly 51 million Democratic voters in December 2000.

we should be calling you "Senator Lamont," but thanks to your efforts, Sen. Leiberman and his neo-cons have been exposed as the anti-democratic, anti-Ameircan , socialized­-corporate­-welfare deceivers they really are.

[plebeianswillrevolt]

Wow, does reading this blog ever fill me with remorse of what could have been. ..... (joe lieberman, Americans,--- you get the government you deserve).

Please run again Ned.

[kcnewhaven]

DITO

[kylennblack]

Iraq's government was overthrown and puppets put in so their oil would no longer be nationalized. Foreign companies (read: the US) can now go in and take it.

The US killed hundreds of thousands and displaced millions to Bush could rob them of their oil.

Happy Independence Day, Iraq.