The War as Wedge Issue

by Anna Quindlen

Every war develops its own rhetoric, its own catchphrases—especially, in our modern world, its own sound bites. The war in Iraq is no exception, and its mantra, once you get past "bringing freedom" and "cut and run," is "chaos." As the calls for withdrawal have grown more persistent, various elected officials have warned that chaos would be the result of ending military engagement. A descent into chaos, chaotic conditions, widespread chaos. The conclusion is clear: if American troops leave, all hell will break loose.

The problem with that argument is that American troops are in Iraq, but chaos already reigns. Seven civilians shot to death on a bus. Two bombs in a Shiite neighborhood, killing 10 and injuring dozens more. The execution of perhaps as many as 40 Sunnis by Shiite militiamen. And on and on and on. Iraq is in the midst of a sectarian civil war, although that's one phrase you won't hear because it sounds suspiciously like American failure.

Supporters insist it would be worse if the troops were not there. Try telling that to what's left of the family of a 14-year-old Iraqi girl allegedly raped and murdered by five U.S. soldiers who are also accused of killing her parents and little sister. Atrocities may be the inevitable result of a military so strapped that it is increasingly accepting recruits with criminal records.

So if the chaos and civil war that proponents of prolonged engagement predicted are already here, what's the mission in Iraq? With much of the Middle East in tumult, this would be a good time for an honest discussion of the complexities of the future and the mistakes of the recent past. But Americans won't hear one. As long as a year ending in an even number looms, the war will be massaged into simple slogans and bumper stickers, advertisements for warring parties and their candidates.

Optimists might argue that there is something bracing about a superpower that believes it can right the bitter historical divisions of centuries in the space of a few years. Realists would counter that it is an act of hubris, plain and simple. Onlookers, including the American people, don't know quite what to make of the entire enterprise. In the most recent Gallup poll they were all over the map on the Iraq war. Nearly a third want to pull out immediately. But the rest embraced a variety of strategies, including staying the course and finishing what we started—two slogans that suggest, despite evidence to the contrary, that the course was ever clear and that what we started bears much relationship to what we'll end up with.

But perhaps the most significant figure in the poll quantifies how well informed the respondents feel about the war. Only 25 percent believe they are completely up to speed. How could it be otherwise? This is a conflict that began with misinformation, muddled messages and the Panglossian suggestion that a country whose history has been bathed in blood could be transformed into a little Nebraska. The administration pumped up intelligence it didn't have or knew to be suspect, like weapons of mass destruction (someone owes Hans Blix an apology) and yellowcake uranium. Reporters have done their level best to get the facts out while being kidnapped, blown up, even killed. They've also become accustomed to dodging darts from the White House, which has used the demonization of the press as a cover for its own shortcomings.

A president who leads his country into war has a special responsibility to forgo oversimplification and partisan politics. The Bush administration has gone the other way, beginning with the MISSION ACCOMPLISHED banner that seems now like a particularly pathetic boast. Last month there was a specious congressional debate on withdrawal. Much of it was a series of position statements, looking not toward bloodshed in Baghdad but the ballot box in the midterm elections.

So our elected officials find themselves threading their way among the opinions of American voters, who tell pollsters they haven't really been told enough to have an informed opinion: as in "Ring Around the Rosy," there are no leaders, just a circle of followers. We all fall down. Last week the Government Accountability Office, the nonpartisan congressional watchdog group, released a report saying the war strategy was murky, the effort poorly planned and the $1.5 billion pumped into Iraq each week by the United States chronically mismanaged. In other words, the U.S. government has its own chaos to deal with.

The sad thing is that everyone now knows how this is going to end: little by little, acknowledging a stupendous error in tactics and judgment without ever acknowledging it at all, the United States will pull its troops from Iraq, leaving advisers and aid workers. The civil war will continue. So will the killings. There will be chaos no matter when we leave. But the Republicans will find a way to claim victory, and the Democrats will do the same. Iraq may even be better off. But will the United States? The deaths of nearly 3,000 American women and men have been turned into a wedge issue, used for purposes of posturing and politicking. For shame.