As popular domestic opposition to the administration’s policies in Iraq reaches new highs, President George W. Bush’s efforts to justify the ongoing war seem to have reached new lows. Indeed, in the president’s nationally-televised June 28th speech from an Army base at Fort Bragg, North Carolina, he was clearly straining to defend his disastrous decision to invade and occupy that oil-rich Middle Eastern country.
As the costs begin to escalate in the Gulf States with Congress authorizing $60 billion for rescue and cleanup operations and as fingers point in the Capital, the costs of another quagmire mount—that of the Iraq War. The death and destruction strewn by hurricane Katrina may equal or even exceed the death toll of U.S. soldiers in the Iraq War. But while 6,000 miles separates the two, the links between war overseas and the fate of those in Katrina’s wake are closely interwoven.
Despite increased U.S. military operations and the stepped-up training of Iraqis, the Iraq insurgency continues to be deadly—nearly 3 U.S. soldiers died per day in August. Dwarfing that number are Iraqi deaths as a result of the fighting which average 34 every day.
As it begins to appear that the death toll in southeastern Louisiana and southern Mississippi from Hurricane Katrina may surpass that of 9/11, questions are once again being raised regarding the Bush administration’s distorted views as to what constitutes national security.
Article 25: “The state shall guarantee the reforming of the Iraqi economy according to modern economic bases, in a way that ensures complete investment of its resources, diversifying its sources and encouraging and developing the private sector.”
We believe that our plan to bring the troops home and internationalize the peace offers the best chance of ending the war and helping to repay our huge debt to the people of Iraq and to our returning soldiers, themselves made victims of this war. But we also understand that whatever the plan, it must be based on knowledge.
Knowledge of the staggering costs in lives, in money, in human rights, and so much more of this illegal war. Knowledge that this war has made all of us—the U.S., Iraqis, and the rest of the world—less safe. It is time to share the information, to open the debate and to work towards the common ground that will be required to bring the troops home and internationalize the peace.
On Monday, Iraq’s National Assembly will release a draft constitution to be voted on by the people in two months. Since February, vital issues have been debated and discussed by the drafting committee: the role of Islamic law, the rights of women, the autonomy of the Kurds and the participation of the minority Sunnis.
While the news media have covered every twist and turn in the negotiations over a constitution, it has largely ignored the most important development in Iraq since the January 2005 election – the emergence of a sectarian civil war between Sunnis and Shiites.
Between Monday, September 17 and Thursday, September 20, FPIF circulated the following sign-on letter via the Internet. Over 1,800 people, mainly academics and foreign policy experts signed the letter–a remarkable response over a short period of time. We sent out a press release Thursday afternoon, just prior to President Bush’s speech to Congress and the country, and distributed the statement to all congressional members. Those who signed included professors from 83 different colleges and universities, students from 40 academic institutions, and people from 18 different countries, ranging from Cameroon to Pakistan to Ukraine. A number of the signers also sent notes and comments.
The song speaks of “those lazy, hazy, crazy days of summer.”
The prevailing sentiment, less “laid back,” refers to “the dog days of summer” from which the rich and well-connected have historically sought relief by getting out of town. Indeed, one can easily picture Caesar Augustus—in whose honor the Roman Senate renamed and lengthened the sixth month in the Julian calendar—abandoning Rome in the same way Congress and the president flee Washington.