The Iraq Dilemma: Do it Right or Quick?

The Iraq Dilemma: Do it Right or Quick?
By Doyle McManus and Sonni Efron, Times Staff Writers

WASHINGTON — President Bush has proclaimed two highly ambitious goals for the U.S. occupation of Iraq in the next six months: to crush the anti-American insurgency and then, on June 30, to transfer sovereignty to a still-unformed Iraqi government.

To do so, Bush and his right-hand man in Iraq, L. Paul Bremer III, must make a series of crucial decisions that may determine whether the U.S. invasion is remembered as a triumph or as the overreach of an arrogant superpower.

Underlying almost every choice is a basic dilemma: Is it more important to do Iraq "right" — to make sure stability and democracy take firm root — or to do it "quick," before the majority of both Iraqis and American voters decide that the occupation has become too great a burden?

Both options require maintaining a large contingent of troops in Iraq to establish the groundwork for the fledgling government and then protect it. Bush has even left himself the option of temporarily increasing the number of troops if necessary.

"The president wants to do it right," Deputy Secretary of State Richard L. Armitage said in an interview last week. "And that's why … he's talking in terms of one or two years, and the military commanders are also talking about one or two years, in terms of the troops' staying there."

However, others inside and outside the administration worry that in an election year, pressure will mount to draw down troops more quickly.

(more)

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/la-fg-usiraq28dec28,1,2979295.story?coll=la-headlines-world

So you might as well do it quick. Crushing people does not accomplish anything. We cannot afford to buy them off. The only thing left is to get out any way we can and not do anything so stupid in the future.

when the US is eventually driven out only animosity will remain