Please Mr. Bush, No More Sacrifices!

In his efforts to bolster his falling ratings, U.S. President George W. Bush has let no occasion pass without telling Americans that the Iraq War is worth sacrifices.

By insisting that the sacrifices in Iraq are worth it, the President wants to drive the following message home: his Iraq policy will go ahead regardless of the blood being shed.

General Richard Myers, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, is also involved in the current campaign to explain to Americans how important it is to stay the course and eventually win what is increasingly becoming an unwinnable war.

But unlike Bush, the top U.S. general has admitted that the politicians who planned this war overlooked the consequences in such a large, ethnically and religiously diverse country like Iraq.

There is no doubt the situation in Iraq is precarious and the tenuous agreement on the Constitution is unlikely to change things for the better. The outcome of constitutional talks must have been quite a shock to U.S. policy makers, after President Bush’s personal involvement to get all sides sign on. As the situation stands now, all indications point to the collapse of the program designed for Iraq by the United States. Washington must be embarrassed by the course of events.

The sacrifices are high, and probably too high for both the U.S. and Iraq. The people Washington supported to steer Iraq’s ship of State after America’s 2003 invasion have proven almost completely ignorant of the country they have come to rule.

The future of Iraq is now obscure, not to Iraqi eyes but also to the eyes of U.S. policy makers.

In the U.S. there are many now, among them people in the administration, who publicly discuss how miserable conditions in Iraq have become.

The Americans in Iraq are better positioned to describe events in Iraq that Iraq’s new rulers, because the 138,000 U.S. troops have not shielded themselves in the fortified Green Zone – the only sake haven in the country for Iraqi politicians. The troops are on the move and present nearly everywhere, so perhaps they are the only ones with a clear picture of what is happening.

These are the conditions under which our Constitution has been written. It doesn’t take two pair of eyes to predict the result. Iraqi politicians sleeping, working and eating in the Green Zone are the last to know about what is exactly happening in Iraq.

Ask only Washington. It is the only place on earth that you can learn the reality of the situation in Iraq. But unfortunately Washington is still trying to hide the truth.