The Bush administration made a lot of empty claims during its rush to war with Iraq. No evidence has been given that the fallen Iraqi regime directly supported terrorists. Coalition troops haven't been able to find the weapons of mass destruction President Bush assured the public Saddam Hussein was so cunningly hiding from the weapons inspectors.
Now, the newly liberated Iraq is in a state of anarchy. Bush's promise that he had post-war plans is beginning to look as empty as his other promises. There has been looting, rioting and chaos in many Iraqi cities. Old ethnic rivalries have already begun to surface; bands of Kurds have been expelling Arabs from villages in northern Iraq and recently a group of Shiites staged a protest to say they didn't have enough of a role in the reconstruction of the country.
Plans for keeping order are already falling apart. Bush counted on local police officers to continue doing their duties even after the fall of Saddam Hussein's regime. What he didn't take into account is that, in the eyes of many civilians, these police officers were agents of an oppressive government. Fearing that the people would hold vendettas against them, police have in many instances refused to return to work.
\It's untidy,"" said Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, speaking of the lawless state. ""And freedom's untidy. And free people are free to make mistakes and commit crimes and do bad things."" Apparently, Rumsfeld and his colleagues planned to remove Saddam from power and not do much beyond that. It is as if he is telling the Iraqi people that the United States has done its job by getting rid of Saddam and is now leaving them to figure out what to do next.
This is not the first time Bush has not been able to follow through with what he started. Just a year and a half after being ""liberated"" by the United States, Afghanistan is in trouble. The fragile democratic government is losing its hold; warlords are gaining power in parts of the country and the Afghan people still live under terrible conditions in most places. Yet in his budget proposal, the president did not include a single dollar of aid to Afghanistan.
Bush can not seem to finish what he started on the home front, either. After promising in his campaign that he had a plan for education that would ""leave no child behind,"" the public school system is falling apart. Class sizes are growing rather than shrinking in most big cities, and Bush has favored eliminating important programs such as daycare and school lunches.
The administration once again has Americans convinced it will see its latest project through to the end. The military, which did an outstanding job in the invasion of Iraq, is not trained or equipped to keep the peace effectively. The fighting is finished, but plans for humanitarian aid and a post-war government have not yet been drafted. Yet we are supposed to believe that Bush will finish this process.
Bush and his cronies may have liberated Iraq from Saddam Hussein's rule, but there is a whole new set of problems. Some Iraqis see the United States, with its inability to provide adequately for them, as no better than Hussein's regime. ""Saddam was bad,"" said a sheikh from the town of Umm Qasr in southern Iraq, ""but at least we had water.""
Iraq could be a successful democratic country and, with its massive oil reserves, very prosperous. The fall of Saddam Hussein's regime leaves an opening for a new, unified Iraq. However, with recent history as precedent, there is no reason to believe this latest military success will be a humanitarian and political success as well.
