OPINION: Congress must begin gradual withdrawal of U.S. troops from Iraq
THE ISSUE: National debate has grown more intense regarding ending the war in Iraq.
OUR VIEW: The U.S. government must gradually remove troops from Iraq, being responsible about the war but giving control back to Iraq.
The United States should start to gradually remove its troops from Iraq. We’ve been there long enough and done enough and spent enough.
Gradual withdrawal is the best of the three possible options. One of the other two possibilities would be remaining indefinitely while perhaps sending more troops. But how can we do that when we’ve already been there just about 32 months? When will the end come?
The United States can’t really expect to make things perfect before ending its Middle East visit. The Iraqis won’t feel independent and capable of launching out on their own until we, the Americans, the foreigners, have left. They needed us, but only for a while. So continuing the stay indefinitely risks losing the welcome.
The third possibility would be immediate and complete withdrawal, which it seems is the option preferred by some anti-war protesters like Cindy Sheehan.
Mrs. Sheehan lost her 24-year-old son, Casey, in Iraq. She now protests the war, recently leading a 26-day anti-war vigil near President Bush’s ranch in Crawford, Texas. That is, she now dishonors the memory of her son, a soldier who bravely went to Iraq to serve his country. Does his mother now not think that he realized death to be a possibility when he went? And now Mrs. Sheehan and others complain about the sacrifice Casey and others made for the cause of freedom in Iraq.
No, the anti-war protesters are coming too late. Now that we’re in Iraq, we have to responsibly finish the job. And at this point, more than two and a half years after the war started, we have to start focusing on pulling out and letting the Iraqi government and U.S.-trained Iraqi military begin to develop their own methods of maintaining the country”s peace.
And the Pentagon has already developed a plan for withdrawing more than 60,000 of the 160,000 troops now stationed in Iraq. Such a plan must include not just a decrease in personnel but also a relinquishing of oversight to the Iraqis. Such a plan is workable.
The United States needs to ignore anti-war protesters and focus on continuing, but ultimately finishing, the job.
