Post-war Iraq: Quagmire or Master Plan?

"We know where they are," declared Pentagon chief Donald Rumsfeld on March 30, assuring television viewers about the location of Iraqi weapons of mass destruction (WMD), two weeks into the war in Iraq. "They are in the area around Tikrit and Baghdad."

It was just the latest in string of blanket statements issued by the Bush administration on the subject of Iraq. The neocons within the administration were brimming with confidence, not only on Saddam's guilt but also the outcome of the war. "I really do believe we will be greeted as liberators," said Vice President Dick Cheney as U.S. troops massed along the border between Kuwait and Iraq on the eve of the war. "Wildly off the mark," blustered Rumsfeld's deputy, Paul Wolfowitz, in response to then-Army Chief of Staff Eric Shinseki's estimate that more than 200,000 troops would be needed as a post-war occupation force.

Yet here we are, nearly two months after President Bush declared "victory" in dramatic fashion from the deck of an aircraft carrier, and the "Q-word" -- "quagmire" -- is back in the headlines. As it becomes increasingly clear that U.S. troops may be facing a guerrilla war, the reasons for the U.S. presence are more uncertain than ever. Not only are the much-touted WMD still to be found, but there is still no proof of ties between Iraq and al Qaeda or Iraqi knowledge of or complicity in the Sept. 11 attacks.

If that were not embarrassing enough, Washington still has around 150,000 troops in Iraq -- twice the number projected before the war -- and is desperately seeking as many as 30,000 more from its "coalition" partners, with all expenses to be paid by the U.S. taxpayer. And events of this past weekend -- when unknown persons in a remote desert area blew up a key oil pipeline that supplies Baghdad power plants -- suggest that even the additional troops may not be sufficient to do the job.

Some officers on the ground complained before television cameras this week that they are far too thinly spread to impose order over such a large country. It's no easy task especially when a significant number of Iraqis do not appreciate the presence of U.S. troops, and a well-armed and tenacious few are trying to kill them. What's more, they are succeeding, and at an accelerating rate. In the last couple of weeks, they have killed an average of about one U.S. soldier every two days and wounded several more.

As is apparent even in mainstream media coverage, news from Iraq isn't good. The declining morale among the troops was evident in the Friday Washington Post. "The war is supposed to be over, but every day we hear of another soldier getting killed," a U.S. sergeant told the Post. "Saddam isn't in power anymore. The locals want us to leave. Why are we still here?"

A recent comment on the all-military website, Defense and the National Interest, gloomily noted, "The Army is getting bogged down in a morale- numbing 4th Generation War in Iraq that is now taking on some appearances of the Palestinian Intifada." Another predicted that the Pentagon's plans for rotating new units into occupation duty could well "melt down" the Army's personnel system within the year.

And then there was this little-noticed headline that appeared in USA Today on Thursday: "U.S. Troops May Be In Iraq for 10 Years: Defense officials reportedly seek up to 54 billion dollars a year." The same Wolfowitz who ridiculed Shinseki's estimates had now testified before a Senate hearing that a U.S. withdrawal was a remote prospect. He suggested instead that permanent bases may have to be built to house troops -- a notion unlikely to go down well even with U.S.-backed exiles like Ahmed Chalabi. Chalabi, touted as the heir apparent to Saddam by the neocons, has spent much of his recent visit to the U.S. accusing the Paul Bremer-led administration of essentially blowing it.