Losing the peace in Iraq? (8/25/03)

With every passing day in Iraq, Dick Lugar is being proved right.

Unfortunately.

The senior senator from Indiana was sounding the alarm a year ago that the Bush Administration was failing to plan sufficiently for post-war Iraq and was seriously underestimating the complexity and the cost — in both lives and dollars — of an American occupation.

His efforts won him few friends at the White House.

As recently as last week, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld was dismissing Lugar’s questions and complaints, even though events have proven daily that the senator is right.

Last week’s deadly bombing on a United Nations facility, the ongoing loss of the lives of American soldiers, and new reports that our leadership in Baghdad is botching the job only add to the evidence.

Like Sen. Lugar, we wish that weren’t so. But it is. Denial and obfuscation on the part of Donald Rumsfeld won’t make that fact go away.

Having handily won the military victory, we run the risk of seeing it all slip away because of bungling at the top of the defense establishment. — J.R.[[In-content Ad]]