NYT p.1 analysis -- Iraq Exit Plan: New Obstacles

[DeepModem Mom]

Two weeks ago, the Bush administration settled on an "exit strategy" for Iraq in which the United States committed itself to establishing self-rule there by next summer — well ahead of its previous schedule and just as the American presidential election season will be getting under way.

But the administration's initial plan for that transfer of authority has fallen apart, raising doubts about whether the June 30 deadline for ending the American occupation authority in Baghdad is still feasible.


In Mr. Bush's Thanksgiving Day pledge in Baghdad, he vowed that American military forces "will stay until the job is done." But hostility to the American occupation is growing so fast, they say, that if Iraq does not become self-governing quickly, attacks on American forces could increase.


"If we turn things over next July 1 to whatever slapdash conglomeration that is out there — let's say the Governing Council plus some others, which is what they want — you could have a civil war in Iraq come next November," an administration official said.


http://www.nytimes.com/2003/11/29/international/middleeast/29DIPL.html