Rumfeld`s Arrogance Only Messes Things Up

Ever increasing casualties of U.S. soldiers and continuing retaliatory attacks and intensifying U.S anti-war public opinion even after the declaration of the Iraq War.

What are the things of the Iraq War that went wrong in the hands of George W. Bush administration?

Two U.S. current affairs weeklies, Time and The Newsweek (Sep. 29 Edition) conducted a comprehensive analysis on debates over the Iraq War which was declared to be ended by President Bush on May 1 by saying ˝major combats are all over.˝

The two magazines pointed out that the failure of post Iraq measures derived from the lack of U.S. soldiers` understanding on Iraqi local culture and confusion and misjudgments in the U.S. administration.

Over the post-Iraqi issues, the White House, the State Department and the Pentagon only messed up things rather than cooperating with each other.

In case of the White House, the Pentagon did not even know that the Pentagon had already organized a working-level group of over 200 Iraqis on year before prior to the war to discuss the post-Iraq War issues.

In the meanwhile, as the criticism over the post-war plan was intensifying, White House National security adviser Condoleezza Rice organized additional four working-level groups. The groups, however, made a mistake by ridiculously underestimating the Iraqi reconstruction budget as 50 million to 60 million dollars.

President Bush was also inconsistent over the post-war Iraq. Bush initially seemed to exclude all other lines beside the Pentagon when he appointed retired Lt. Gen. Jay Garner as Iraq`s U.S. administrator but, as the situation gets worse, Bush later replaced Garner with L. Paul Bremer.

Administrator Bremer is also often criticized for his laying off thousands of Iraqi soldiers by disbanding Iraqi forces right after the end of war in May, creating potential hostiles. Local leaders claimed that local people who can understand locals should be utilized as local peacekeeping forces, but the U.S. reportedly rejected their proposal.

Time analyzed that words and behaviors of U.S. soldiers` who do not comprehend the Iraqi local culture or mind-set stimulated anti-U.S. sentiment in Iraq.

˝If local police politely ask Iraqis to do favors, they are willing to do whatever requested. But, if they yell at them like the U.S. soldiers, and look down on them, we can not help ourselves but hate the U.S.,˝ one local resident said. U.S. soldiers` Ransacking Iraqi civilian houses in some regions, which even soldiers of the Saddam regime did not conduct, also stimulated negative feelings against the U.S., the magazine said.

Quoting local officials, The Newsweek noted that among the 800 personnel of the U.S.`s Iraqi administration, only 17 can speak Arabic and only one person is an expert on Iraq.

Such a lack of experts has derived from US Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld`s imbalanced view. The Pentagon planned to send 16 out of 20 recruited Iraqi experts to Baghdad but Rumsfeld reduced the number dramatically claiming their stance is tilted toward Arab`s point of view.

Defense Secretary Colin Powell once quarreled with Rumsfeld over his such actions saying, ˝how could you mess up things so badly,˝ and Richard Lee Armitage, Deputy Secretary of State, also criticized Pentagon personnel, saying ˝they are bats living upside down all day long, so they can not see things properly.˝

Jung-Ahn Kim credo@donga.com