Times Watch for August 29, 2003
Whats Another Word for Quagmire?
Douglas Jehls Friday
piece on the high cost of occupation in Iraq doesnt contain the word
quagmire, but it may as well: But after four months in which the American
occupation of Iraq has exacted a heavy toll, and with no end in sight, the new
American approach to the United Nations can be seen as a call for help in the
face of a politically intolerable arithmetic.
To make his case that Bush
is suffering politically, Jehl turns to that well-known fount of objectivity,
Democratic Sen. Joe Biden of Delaware, who says: We're 95 percent of the
deaths, 95 percent of the costs, and more than 90 percent of the troops. The
costs are staggering, the number of troops are staggering, we're seeing
continuing escalation of American casualties, and we need to turn to the U.N.
for help, for a U.N.-sanctioned military operation that is under U.S. command.
Besides Biden, the only other source Jehl quotes is James Steinberg, President
Clintons deputy national security adviser, who dismisses a U.S. donors
conference intended to raise cash for Iraqi rebuilding.
Is the U.S. situation in
Iraq really as politically intolerable as Jehl claims? So far U.S. patience is
holding firm, according to a
new
Gallup poll that finds Americans seem resolute in their support of the
mission: Sixty-three percent say the situation in Iraq was worth going to war
over. That's exactly the same as the readings from two July Gallup Polls that
asked this question, and higher than the late June reading of 56%.
Jehl continues: With
nearly 140,000 American soldiers still in Iraq, the military costs alone are
running at nearly $4 billion a month, administration officials have said. More
American troops have been killed since major combat operations ended than during
them, at least 64 of them by hostile fire in a guerrilla resistance that shows
no sign of dissipating.
For the rest of Douglas Jehls story,
click here.