Defining the mission

PRESIDENT BUSH’S SPEECH WEDNESDAY before applauding midshipmen at the U.S. Naval Academy provided more detail and specifics than his usual “stay the course” rhetoric on Iraq, but it still lacked a coherent definition of the U.S. military’s mission, and therefore offered Americans no sense of when they can be

assured that mission will be truly accomplished.

Alas, this remained true even after the White House released a 35-page National Strategy for Victory in Iraq that spoke about the virtues of victory and the dangers of failure -- without offering a clear path forward.

The speech was one of several that Bush will give before the Dec. 15 elections for a permanent government in Iraq, which promises to be the next in a series of political advances this year that included the inspiring sight of Iraqis defying terrorists to vote for an interim government and a constitution. The White House report claimed there has been significant political, security and economic progress, but only in the political sphere have there been major advances. Even there, it is unclear if the ultimate result will be a country in which all groups are adequately represented and minority rights are protected. The danger is that the majority Shiites, with help from the Kurds, will run roughshod over the Sunnis.

Bush’s speech comes at a time of increasing unhappiness at home with the lack of progress in Iraq. He airily claimed there would be no “artificial timetable” for troop withdrawals “set by politicians in Washington.” But dissatisfaction with the continued suicide bombings and murders, and the mounting death toll of U.S. troops (now at more than 2,100), extends across the nation, well beyond the capital.

Bush spoke of U.S. forces adapting their tactics to changing conditions; for example, recruits for Iraq’s police force are now given less classroom instruction and more field work. He bragged about the fact that more and more of their trainers are Iraqis. And in a bit of rare candor about earlier missteps, the president acknowledged that new civil defense forces initially did not have sufficient firepower.

He glossed over other, considerable problems. A Times report Tuesday told of Shiite militia members infiltrating Iraq’s police force and using their guns, uniforms and power to murder Sunnis. Nor does Bush’s rhetoric about spreading democracy square with Wednesday’s report in The Times that the U.S. military is secretly paying Iraqi newspapers to publish stories written by U.S. forces that appear to readers to be the work of independent news agencies.

The training of Iraqi security forces was the main theme of Bush’s speech, but the progress he sees is less visible to many, including some U.S. soldiers. Only a few hundred Iraqi soldiers can operate effectively, with their own supply lines and transportation, without help from U.S. troops, though Bush dismissed this by saying the same could be said about some NATO battalions. The belated decision to allow lower-ranking officers from Saddam Hussein’s former army to join the new Iraqi military may improve force strength, but it probably will be at least two years before enough Iraqis are trained and sufficiently equipped to allow substantial numbers of the nearly 160,000 American troops in Iraq to come home.

Bush is right to declare that Iraq is now the center of the war on terror, though it only achieved that status after the U.S. invasion. Given that an immediate withdrawal could result in a failed state and a future haven for terrorists, it is necessary for U.S. troops to stay -- for now. But Iraqis should heed hints that the American military mission is not open-ended.

If Iraqi soldiers’ capabilities are improving to the extent Bush claims, it should be possible to withdraw some American forces in the near future and reduce the strain on the U.S. military. But if the Iraqis do not demonstrate major progress next year, it will be time to wonder if they ever will.

Iraqi politicians say they do not want a permanent American military presence. It will be up to the new government to make that a reality by making the training and equipping of an army and police force its top priority.