When Will the First Major Newspaper Call for Pullout in Iraq

When Will the First Major Newspaper Call for a Pullout in Iraq?
The once unthinkable suddenly becomes thinkable.
By Greg Mitchell
Editors and Publishers
May 07, 2004

After a month of uprisings in Iraq, an unexpected hike in U.S. casualties, and a prison abuse scandal that shattered goodwill in the Arab street, what do American newspapers have to say?

So far, not very much, at least in terms of advising our leaders how to clean up or get out of this mess.

But then, they are not alone. Republicans have been cackling for weeks over John Kerry's inability to distinguish his position on the war from the president's -- after Bush agreed to bring into the picture the United Nations, NATO and anyone else who might bail us out.

The two candidates also seem to agree that sending more U.S. troops to Iraq might turn the tide. Most newspapers like that idea, too. Last month an E&P survey revealed that the vast majority of America's large newspapers favored this approach to Iraq: Stay the course.

There's no easy strategy for success, but the question is: are newspaper editorial pages ready to sustain that position now? And if that means calling for more troops, or remaining in Iraq at present levels indefinitely, are they willing to accept responsibility (along with the White House, Pentagon and Congress) for the continuing carnage and the unmentionable expense?

This, of course, must also be considered in the context of whatever other responsibility newspapers share for embracing the dubious pre-war claims on weapons of mass destruction and endorsing the invasion in the first place. In fact, one might argue that the press has a special responsibility for helping undo the damage.

In a remarkable episode of ABC's "Nightline" last night, retired Army Lt. General William Odom, director of the National Security Agency during the Reagan administration, called for a phased U.S. pullout from Iraq over the next six to nine months. And yet no major newspaper has explored this idea.

That is not to say that calling for a U.S. pullout from Iraq is the only moral, rational or political choice. But if newspaper editors are not going to endorse that -- then what is YOUR solution?

A month ago, few questioned that the U.S. ought to stay in Iraq. Maybe we went to war based on lies and fabrications; but now we had to make things right for the average citizens. As Colin Powell put it: we broke it, we owned it, but maybe we could patch it up, or buy a better one.

Now this must be contemplated: After our military adventures of the past month and, particularly, after Abu Ghraib, is the U.S. actually the problem and not the solution? In other words, as hostile occupiers -- and, in some cases, torturers -- we are no longer facilitating but possibly standing in the way of progress in Iraq.

If we are doing more harm than good, then all arguments about our duty to stay (after we build a few dozen more hospitals and schools) become moot.

And an argument that has been out there all along -- that we should be deploying our limited military personnel and resources against terrorists elsewhere (who really can do us harm) -- becomes even more pertinent.

No one should underestimate the impact of the prison torture scandal, whether Donald Rumsfeld loses his job or not. Last month, when I interviewed The Washington Post's Rick Atkinson for a column, he told me that every war inevitably becomes corrupt. "Even righteous wars corrupt soldiers," he said. Two weeks later, the pictures from Abu Ghraib appeared.

But what really got me to thinking the unthinkable -- a phased U.S. pullout from Iraq -- was a letter that Bill Mitchell (no relation) of Atascadero, Calif. wrote to his son's former commanding officer in Iraq. His son, Army SSG Mike Mitchell, was killed in Iraq in early April, as I documented in a news story last week.

In that letter, Bill wrote about the "irony" that his son "was killed by the very people that he was liberating. This is insanity!!!" He added: "I am having a major problem with being OK with his death under these circumstances and I really do not believe that Iraq, the world, or the lives of his family and friends are better due to his death." Imagine the pain behind those lines.

Steve Chapman, in a Chicago Tribune column last weekend, played a cruel game of logic. He applied it to Sen. Kerry's position on the war but he could have been referring to the editorial positions of most American newspapers.

Chapman summed up the "stay the course" predicament like this: "We can't manage an increasingly turbulent Iraq with the forces we have. We don't have many extra troops to send. We can't turn over security to Iraqis because they can't be trusted. We can't get other countries to help us out. And things keep getting worse."

Yet, he pointed out, "Democrats and Republicans agree that we have to go on squandering American lives because we don't know what else to do."

So what do the editors of American newspapers think we should do?

Are you ready, now, to think the unthinkable? Who will be the first in line to call for a phased withdrawal, not more troops? As with Vietnam, one brave voice (remember Walter Cronkite on Feb. 27, 1968) may inspire others.

And if that isn't your position -- what exactly is it?