- WASHINGTON (Reuters) -- U.S.
action in Iraq could prove a foreign policy debacle if the Bush administration
ignores Washington's painful failure at nation-building in South Vietnam
a generation ago, a new Army report warns.
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- As in Southeast Asia, the United States is trying to
fashion a legitimate state in Iraq against a backdrop of insurgency, rising
U.S. death tolls and tenuous support at home, said the report published
this month by the Army War College.
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- But U.S. troops, viewed by many Iraqis as invaders, lack
the advantage of South Vietnam's large domestic security force as they
seek to build new institutions under the pressure of a June 30 deadline
for transfer of sovereignty.
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- "In Vietnam, we were trying to prop up a government
that had little legitimacy. In Iraq, we're trying to weave together a government
and support it so it can develop legitimacy. Both are extremely hard to
do," said co-author W. Andrew Terrill, of the War College's Strategic
Studies Institute.
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- The Vietnam War, a Cold War catastrophe that still haunts
American policymakers, ended in the 1970s with 58,000 U.S. war dead after
public opinion turned against policies aimed at containing Communism in
Southeast Asia.
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- Administration officials have rejected assertions Iraq,
now a main front in the U.S. war on terrorism, poses a Vietnam-like quagmire
for the 135,000 U.S. troops now inside the country.
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- Terrill and his co-author, Air Force War College professor
Jeffrey Record, say there are few military parallels between Iraq and Vietnam,
where Communist fighters backed by the Soviet Union and China defeated
a peak force of 500,000 U.S. troops.
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- But their 69-page report, titled "Iraq and Vietnam:
Differences, Similarities and Insights," warns of dire consequences
if the political lessons of Vietnam go unheeded. "Repetition of those
failures in Iraq could have disastrous consequences for U.S. foreign policy,"
it says.
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- Terrill and Record warned of potentially dangerous political
damage to U.S.-Arab relations if Washington's objective of installing democracy
in Iraq means the establishment a large American military presence in the
region.
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- The War College says the report does not necessarily
reflect the views of the Army, Pentagon or U.S. government.
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- U.S. PUBLIC IMPATIENCE
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- Given that Iraqis have known nothing but authoritarian
rule since the country's inception, it's impossible to say whether U.S.
policy will succeed, the authors say.
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- Insurgent violence could also grow after the June 30
handover, when the run-up to elections magnifies divisions among rival
ethnic, religious and tribal groups, all well-stocked with weapons and
ammunition.
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- "The main threat to state-building in Iraq lies
not in the insurgency in central Iraq but rather in the potential for the
recent uprising of Shi'ite militants to reignite, expand, and include large
elements of that community, or the development of the kind of sectarian
civil war that plunged Lebanon into near anarchy for almost two decades,"
the report says.
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- U.S.-led forces have proved incapable of achieving order
in Iraq, more than a year after invading the Arab nation to look for weapons
of mass destruction that have not been found.
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- With U.S. deaths in Iraq now at 791 and taxpayer costs
expected to soar above $180 billion, the authors are cautious about the
longevity of U.S. public support.
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- "Americans could become very impatient should the
rationale for a continuing and costly U.S. occupation of Iraq shift to
a more direct focus on uplifting the Iraqi people, especially if the Iraq
public appears ungrateful," their report says.
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- http://www.reuters.com/newsArticle.jhtml?type=topNews&storyID=5208075
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