Share Iraq Burden, Quickly

The American occupiers of Iraq are telling a story of accomplishment: schools open, a dictator toppled and his sons killed, people speaking their minds, economic life reviving. But back home, Americans see brothers and sons in Baghdad being picked off by snipers and bombers. They hear Iraqis not saying thanks but complaining bitterly that their personal safety, daily comfort and job prospects are worse now than under Saddam Hussein. Iraqis trade in fantastic rumors -- the U.S. troops wear refrigerated underwear! -- that intensify their hostility.

The Bush administration has to move much more quickly to share the burden of pacifying and rebuilding Iraq, to at least diffuse the focus of Iraqi discontent. That means sharing authority and potential rewards as well.

Five civilian advisors the Pentagon sent to Iraq concluded there would be a short window of opportunity to establish security -- the foundation for all accomplishments -- before chaos took over. On Wednesday, a United Nations official in Iraq was quoted as saying “time is short” for occupation forces to improve life for Iraqis -- that or face even more attacks. Last week’s bombing of the Jordanian Embassy in Baghdad that killed 17 people ominously indicated a widening of the violence to “soft targets” and civilians.

The Pentagon’s advisors and two representatives of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee who traveled separately concluded the obvious -- that Washington needs more help. The Coalition Provisional Authority set up to run Iraq says 19 countries have supplied military personnel but rarely mentions that most sent just hundreds of them. Tens of thousands are needed. The authority says that as of mid-July other countries had pledged or contributed more than $1 billion in humanitarian assistance. But the U.S. spends about $4 billion every month on Iraq, and authority head L. Paul Bremer III said this week that Iraq required “staggering” additional amounts to rebuild, including $16 billion to improve water systems and $13 billion for electric power.

The only reasonable next stop is the United Nations, no matter what anti-U.N. hard-liners in the administration argue. The Bush administration botched prewar diplomacy and U.N. Security Council members France and Russia opposed the U.S. invasion, but all nations have a stake in a stable Iraq free from terrorists. Sharing some power with the U.S.-led coalition would make it easier for nations that balked at sending troops, like India and Pakistan, to help. Sizable military forces from Muslim nations would diffuse Iraqis’ focus on what they see as a unilateral occupation by anti-Muslim soldiers. The trade-off would be that other countries would demand a piece of the reconstruction pie.

Each day without electricity in 120-degree heat infuriates Iraqis who rejoiced at the overthrow of Saddam Hussein. Each day another U.S. soldier is killed emboldens guerrillas and terrorists. Washington is not yet treating a deteriorating situation with the sheer urgency it demands.