Set Out a Clear Plan for Iraq

Thirteen months ago Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld triumphantly told U.S. troops in Baghdad they “came not to conquer, not to occupy, but to liberate, and the Iraqi people know this.” Such words trip off no one’s tongue today. Nearly 90% of Iraqis view the U.S. as an occupier, not a liberator, according to a poll conducted before the prison abuse scandal erupted.

Iraqis increasingly demand sovereignty over their own land, but to what degree will that goal be met June 30 when a U.S.- and U.N.-picked interim government replaces the U.S.-led Coalition Provisional Authority?

More than 100,000 U.S. troops will remain. To do what, how and for how long?

President Bush must begin to answer these and other questions Monday night in a scheduled speech at the Army War College in Carlisle, Pa. A White House spokesman said the address would provide “a clear strategy” for Iraq. That is a momentous promise in a sea of generalities.

Bush has said the United States must “stay the course” in Iraq, and presumed Democratic presidential nominee John F. Kerry has agreed. The goal that keeps receding is a nation that does not fracture into Sunni, Shiite and Kurdish parts and does not threaten its neighbors or the United States.

The Pentagon has run the occupation and must determine how U.S. troops work with Iraqi security starting July 1.

Who will take orders from whom? What then will be the role of the U.S. Embassy, with its 1,500 employees, most of them American? With an expected embassy budget of about $1 billion a year, much of it for security, the U.S. obviously hopes to keep a strong influence over the interim government. U.S. advisors are installed in all Iraqi ministries; how can they be seen as advisors, not bosses?

Another question for the president: Will the State Department, sidelined since long before the Iraq War started, actually control the embassy?

A government chosen by the U.S. and United Nations will still lack the legitimacy that only elections -- supposed to be held in about seven months -- can confer. Iraq was cobbled together from remnants of the Ottoman Empire after World War I, not a long time ago in historical terms, and it’s uncertain whether Iraq’s Sunnis, Shiites and Kurds will live under one roof for long. That uncertainty at least lends a silver lining to “U.S. out” demands, which have engendered some nationalist unity.

It is obviously a long way from the current chaos to a stable Iraq that U.S. troops can easily leave. Not obvious is how to get there. The president can’t waste another opportunity to chart a detailed path.