Holt urges administration to start planning for troop pullout post 10/15

[bklyncowgirl]

Got this from an e-mail from Rush Holt which contains the text of a letter to Condi Rice. Basicly says that October 15, the day the Iraqi Constitution is to be ratified is a major benchmark. If the constitution is ratified the U.S. Should declare an incremental troop withdrawal and pledge no permanent military bases.

I am so proud that this guy is my Congressman--and he's a leader in election reform too.

Text below:

Dear Madame Secretary,

I welcome you to both New Jersey and the Woodrow Wilson School at Princeton to celebrate its 75th anniversary. Your visit is timely, coming just two weeks before a pivotal international event of great importance for America, specifically the national referendum in Iraq over the proposed constitution.

In the ongoing debate over America's involvement in Iraq, two broad schools of thought have emerged. The first goes as follows: setting a timetable for withdrawal would only embolden the insurgents. America should focus on "benchmarks of progress," not the calendar.

The other school of thought can be summarized thus: our continued presence only fuels the insurgency and reinforces the idea that America came to Iraq not to topple a dictator, but to secure Iraq's oil reserves by installing a more friendly government. The sooner we leave, the sooner support for the insurgency will dry up.

I would submit that the confluence of the calendar and a key "benchmark" will soon render this debate moot.

I see two potential outcomes in the wake of the October 15 national referendum on the draft Iraqi constitution, but our response to either should be the same: to begin the withdrawal of American forces from Iraq.

Should the draft constitution pass with only limited Sunni support (and strong resentment among the Sunni minority), the charter and the new government that follows in December will remain under a cloud, seen by many Iraqis as political creatures of questionable legitimacy. The nascent and fragile central government will inherit the current regime's serious problems recruiting and retaining security forces whose allegiance is to the new state, and not to a sectarian militia-or the insurgents. Maintaining the loyalty and building the professionalism of the new Iraqi security forces is something that the United States can only assist with-Iraqi leaders must be able to inspire their countrymen to serve, and if necessary, die for, the new state.

Our financial and technical assistance to the new Iraqi security forces will be critically important to their success, but the continued presence of over 130,000 U.S. troops will slow down, not hasten the process of handing over security responsibilities to the Iraqis. Publicly declaring on October 16 that our forces will begin an immediate, incremental withdrawal from Iraq would visibly underscore that we're going to keep our promise and end the occupation. We should simultaneously affirm that we will build no permanent U.S. military bases in the country, and use the occasion to renew efforts to internationalize the rebuilding of the country.

Those are steps that would help the new Iraqi government gain legitimacy in the eyes of a skeptical public, and while our actions would not guarantee success for the new government, they would increase the odds in its favor. Regardless, the road ahead for the new government and the Iraqi people will be long and difficult, and a positive outcome by no means certain.

The second post-October 15 scenario is far more dire.

If the draft constitution is defeated-a real possibility-the interim government will have to be dissolved and the entire process of negotiating, writing, and voting on a national charter will have to be repeated.

This is not a comfortable position we find ourselves in - having to admit that we are not succeeding in our goal. Of course, we would all want to take credit for improving the lives of people by showing them the promise of democracy. But asserting that we are succeeding does not make it so.

In the wake of such a debacle, will the various Iraqi political factions think it worth a second effort? Closer to home, will the American people be willing to pay the price-in lives and dollars-for a second Iraqi effort to fashion and ratify a constitution?

Both issues are in doubt, and it would be too much to ask the American people to sacrifice still more of their loved ones and see more of their tax dollars squandered, all in the hope-and it would be no more than a hope-that another effort by Iraq's political factions will finally produce a document all can agree on and live with. It is hard to see how a continued American presence will help the situation, and this attempt at a constitution is hardly something worth extolling-the document contains extremely few rights for Iraqi women and elevates Islamic laws over democratically inclusive laws. There is little hope that a second attempt would produce any better result.

The implosion of the transitional Iraqi government would likely spark a sectarian civil war, and the rationale for having American troops in Iraq would die with it. The result would be tens of thousands of American troops caught in the crossfire between warring factions, and the need for a swift withdrawal of our forces would become acute in short order. Now is the time to be planning for that worst-case scenario.

At the earliest possible opportunity, I ask that you and your colleagues in the Administration brief members of Congress on American contingency plans should Iraq descend into civil war. Over the last month, we have seen right here at home what can happen when leaders fail to act in the face of a looming threat, beamed into every home with access to The Weather Channel. A different kind of storm is brewing in Iraq. I look forward to your response.


Sincerely,



RUSH HOLT

Member of Congress