When it comes to foreign policy, Lawrence J. Korb is unquestionably a credible expert. He was assistant Defense Secretary in the Reagan administration and is now a senior fellow at the Center for American Progress. Last year, when congressional Democrats began embracing a redeployment plan for Iraq, it was Korb who wrote the proposal and came up with the idea of “strategic redeployment.”
So, now that Korb has returned from a 10-day visit in Iraq, a lot of people are anxious to hear what he learned. Unfortunately, all of the news is discouraging.
Center for American Progress senior fellow and former Reagan Pentagon official Lawrence Korb recently returned from a 10-day visit to Baghdad to “assist the government of Iraq’s efforts to strengthen public administration in its civilian ministries” and uncovered results that only affirm that “the surge is not working.”
Korb noted that U.S. defense contractors, who have benefited heavily from the Iraq war, were curiously restrained in talking about the situation on the ground on the record. Major defense contractors, including those from Blackwater and Halliburton, were mum about the troop escalation only until Korb emphasized that he was not affiliated with the media:
“The long wait [getting through Iraqi customs] did allow me to speak to some of the contractors about the situation on the ground. When I assured them I was not a member of the press, they were unanimous that the surge was not working. One of them said that members of Muqtada Al-Sadr’s militia have sold their guns and melted back into the population in Sadr City and will buy back their guns at the appropriate time (our own security guard said something similar).”
The line from McCain and other war supporters is that there’s a disconnect between the reality on the ground and the news reports we Americans learn through the media. Korb’s report, which is really worth reading in its entirety, points to an entirely different disconnect — between propaganda from administration and Iraqi officials and the day-to-day reality on the streets of Iraq.
Korb, for example, was particularly focused on gauging the efficacy of the president’s escalation strategy.
The most optimistic projection was “maybe temporarily.” But most people speaking off the record believe that the insurgents will shift to other areas and lay low for a while in Baghdad.
…No one in or out of the American or Iraqi government seemed to have a good answer to my question: “how does it end?” On the back of this visit, I am more and more convinced that we must take control of our own destiny by setting a specific timetable for withdrawal. Currently, our fate is in the hands of an Iraqi government that does not have any real incentive to get its act together and does not even seem to understand the gravity of the situation or the declining level of support in the United States.
Bottom line: “Do not believe anyone who tells you that the situation is getting better.” Good advice.