Communicating with My Senator

A while back I posted a letter I sent to John McCain taking him to task for insisting that questioning the war would discourage Americans serving In Iraq. My brother asked me to note if McCain responded. Last week, I received a letter dated 13 February from Senator McCain. Obviously, Congressional mail takes a while but his response did make its way to my mailbox.

The letter is basically a refrain of everything CheneyBush and McCain has been telling the country for the past five years,talking points with all the familiar words--Saddam, 9-11, victory, security, catastrophic, consequences, fail, troops--but not much else. And maybe he really believes it. As a war veteran, I am disappointed that a fellow veteran still believes in war. As a constituent, I do not believe that he well represents me or even a majority of Arizonans.

Needless to say, I do not plan to let St. John have the last word. I have prepared an annotated version of his letter and will further edit my comments for a response. Or maybe just let him have the whole thing. He said he appreciated learning my views on this important subject. Senator McCain's letter is in regular type. My response is in bold. (Hey, it's my blog. I can highlight my ideas if I want to.)



Thank you for contacting me regarding Iraq. I appreciate learning your views on this important issue.

This is a critical moment in Iraq's post-Saddam history. The war in Iraq has not gone as well as we have hoped, and we have made mistakes that cost us dearly. I continue to believe, however, that the President was right to bring Saddam's brutal and dangerous regime to an end.

No he was not. America’s authority for a pre-emptive attack was dubious from the start. Iraq was a problem, not a threat, in 2002-2003. Many reasonable alternatives could have been pursued before launching a war that, as you say “has cost America dearly”. The President’s ever changing justifications for the war are as much evidence of his complete failure to plan for the post-invasion as are the cascade of blunders he has orchestrated in Iraq since the invasion. The end of Saddam’s brutal regime has given way in four years to a failed state, riven with all too predictable ethnic and sectarian strife. Iraq was not a failed State under Saddam. Troublesome, yes (and I know from history that America contributed to the trouble) but Iraq was hardly the charnel house that it has become under American occupation.

America is enormously invested in the outcome of the conflict in Iraq. Our national security and the strength of our international partnerships depend on the outcome of this war. If we should withdraw precipitously from Iraq, we risk creating a failed state in the heart of the Middle East, a situation that would enable terrorists to train and plan attacks against the united states with impunity. We saw just such a situation develop in Afghanistan after international disengagement from that country, and it contributed to the events of 9/11. By turning over security to the as-yet unprepared Iraqi forces, we threaten to plunge that country into a full scale civil war that could destabilize the entire Middle East and invite intervention from Iraq regional neighbors. If we do not succeed in lraq, we would send our partners and our enemies the same message: America has neither the capability nor the will to sustain its operations through to victory.

You assume that the only form of engagement in Iraq is American occupation. I, for one, would prefer to see the kind of international engagement that may well have prevented Afghanistan from descending into chaos after the Soviets abandoned their occupation of that country and the world lost interest, the kind of engagement recommended by the bipartisan Baker-Hamilton commission. And remember, too, that Afghanistan gave Al-Qaeda haven to plan the 9-11 attacks, the President and his administration failed to recognize any number of warnings of an impending action.

A failed state in the Middle East won’t be the first the world has had to deal with. Nor is it likely to be the last. That kind of chaos allows terrorists and other brigands to organize, plan and finance hostile actions against all nations. You are correct that America and the world community need to respond to the threats created by failed states. However, our policy in Iraq since 2003 offers no model that I think any sane person would recommend. The never-large-to-begin-with and now-dwindling “Coalition of the Willing” clearly demonstrates that most nations believe they can deal with terrorism and the instability of failed states in other, less destructive ways.

I prefer that my country support a policy of constructive disengagement from military operations in Iraq in furtherance of regional and diplomatic initiatives to contain the damage from Iraq’s civil war. This is not precipitous withdrawal but simply changing what has been a horribly counterproductive policy. Instead of squandering more lives and treasure, the United States could use those resources far more effectively to protect itself from the real threats to our national security, such as America’s ability to compete and contribute in a globalized world.

Moreover, Iraq was not a failed state prior to our invasion. It was brutal but stable. Now Iraq is brutal and unstable because the President led America into a war that he did not understand, a war that the US military, for all its prowess, was ill-prepared to fight. Instead of the clear-cut, specific mission the President promised and once declared “accomplished”, American forces are caught in a civil war among indigenous forces, criminal gangs and foreign fighters who find Iraq a convenient battleground against America. Had you and the President told the American people that four years on the war you would still be uncertain of success, the war would have never started.

The danger of instability spreading across the Middle East is a risk that America, the United Nations and the nations of the region will have to deal with through diplomacy, frank exchange mutual security agreements that address conflicts and interests in ways that encourage cooperation and trade rather than conflict. As difficult as that may be, it is preferable to continued war and death.

Your language about lack of will and victory is as hollow now as it was 40 years ago when Lyndon Johnson escalated American involvement in Vietnam. That, too, was a crisis with “dire consequences if America failed to show the will to victory”. And yet the consequences, when this nation finally had enough after 15 years of war, were minimal. Dire consequences certainly for the Vietnamese and Americans who were killed, injured and tortured during and after the war but hardly the catastrophic national failure we were asked to fight and sacrifice for.

In light of the dire situation in Iraq, there is much agreement that a political solution is necessary. But we must also realize that it is simply impossible for meaningful political- and economic activity to take place in an environment riddled with violence as Baghdad today. Security is the precondition for political and economic progress.

Security may be a precondition for political and economic progress but when no party has the ability to ensure the needed security, political accommodation then becomes a precondition to security. Short of several hundreds of thousands of American troops, our forces will be unable to provide the security you advocate. Perhaps a much larger force—the 350 to 400 thousand recommended by General Shinseki in 2003--would have created the security needed for political and economic progress in the immediate post-invasion period but that window quickly closed when the all too predictable nationalist, sectarian and criminal elements were given great latitude by the inability of our occupation force to secure public facilities, weapons caches and vital infrastructure. The situation has long since passed beyond anything our military can control short of draconian measures that neither the American public, Iraqis or the world community would find acceptable.

Whether the troop levels prescribed in President Bush's new plan for Iraq will be sufficient to accomplish all that our leaders ask of our troops remains an open question in my mind. I cannot guarantee this new strategy will bring success. But I am certain that we will face potentially catastrophic consequences if we fail.

American military disengagement from Iraq will be no more catastrophic than the situation we already face. Nor will it be a failure or abdication of responsibility. Rather, disengagement will enable this nation to rebuild its military and allow the United States to pursue actual terrorist threats rather than sacrificing its sons and daughters in a cause that does nothing to meet the goals you claim to seek. No doubt more Iraqis will die and that is truly regrettable, a consequence of the forces so blindly unleashed by the President’s ill-advised policy of regime change. I often think that the only reason for continuing the occupation is to keep the war’s architects from having to acknowledge a grievous error that has wasted so much.

I make no apology for calling the American effort a waste. Nothing that has been or may be accomplished in the Iraq war and occupation could not have been achieved without the death and carnage my nation has inflicted on another, without the loss of so much life and limb. That to me is a waste.

It is no failure of America’s service men and women to call their sacrifice a waste. Soldiers sacrifice, you and I both know that. It’s up to leaders to give meaning and value to that sacrifice. President Bush and his administration have wasted that sacrifice. After four years of failure, the time has come to force the issue without more carnage and destruction. The Iraqi government is little more than a figurehead controlled by a militant majority with the avowed intent of disenfranchising and impoverishing a powerful a minority that does not accept that fate and has no good reason to stop fighting. And our sons and daughters are caught in the crossfire of contending factions with little incentive to reach the political accommodation that is necessary to begin rebuilding Iraqi society.

Like you, I know the face of war. Unlike you, I know war up close and personal. But I can’t imagine that killing from the air is any less traumatizing than close up. Different, but still not something a human being does naturally. Sometimes it may be necessary but I can’t imagine ever not regretting the knowledge that I killed another man. I served with the last Americans asked to die in Vietnam, to die for a mistake. I knew that going in but still could not and did not want to refuse my country. Knowing that I did it for no good reason deepens my regret. The US was getting out—troop levels and casualties dropped precipitously during the year I served—so there was little point to what I and my buddies did in the jungles and mountains of Long Kanh and Bin Thuy Provinces.

I think the problems posed by a timely American withdrawal from Iraq can be managed with good planning and with even some honor. The needless death and destruction in Iraq will, like Vietnam, remain a blot on America’s permanent record. The sooner we cauterize this self-inflicted wound, the better.

It is imperative congress provide our troops in lraq the resources required to carry out their vital mission. I have the utmost confidence in the ability of General David Petraeus, the new commander in Iraq, and I feel strongly that his appointment coupled with this change in strategy, gives us the best chance for success. But it wilt be very difficult.

Congress should make it clear to America that it does not want to continue the occupation, that it wants this country to aggressively pursue diplomacy and regional cooperation to find a workable solution to the problems of a failed Iraq. Iraqis, who have constructed and reconstructed political entities in a turbulent region, should have the wisdom and goodwill to broker an agreement that protects all and removes the incentive to fight within a year. They were supposed to have done this long ago. American troops cannot do this for the Iraqis, nor can they be asked to make an open-ended commitment to a political process that does not exist except at the point of our weapons.

Bringing down the violence in Iraq will give Prime Minister Maliki and others the stability they need to pursue reconciliation, but it is ultimately up to the Iraqis themselves to make these tough decisions. It is absolutely imperative that they seize this opportunity. It may well be their last.

What do you mean, It may well be their last? Will you then withdraw? What about all the dire consequences that you just told me will attend an American withdrawal? What’s your policy then? How does it differ from what I propose now? Why inflict that much more damage on our troops and Iraq if you aren’t going to pursue the war further? You aren’t thinking that, are you? Please tell me you will not further escalate the American occupation of Iraq? Where will you get the forces?

Or better yet, please tell me and the nation if that’s what you have in mind. I think we all should know.

Once again, thank you for contacting me. Be assured that I will continue to monitor the situation in Iraq very closely. The stakes in our mission there could not be higher.

Sincerely,
John McCain
United States Senator
JM/ab

High stakes, I agree, for American troops and their families but for the nation not so much that we can’t pursue a regional solution, which I note, was recommended by the Baker-Hamilton Commission. War is the least effective form of intercourse among nations; it is nasty, brutal and far too unpredictable in any but the most extreme circumstances. More war when reasonable alternatives are available makes absolutely no sense to me. Nor is it right to ask of our troops. It is waste beyond measure.

Good for you to monitor the situation. I was disappointed to see that you missed voting on the Senate Iraq resolution.

I apologize for going on at such length. I'm trying to stop a war with words. Like bullets, sometimes you need a lot of 'em.