Market Call

After leaning towards one of Saddam Hussein’s, former generals the Pentagon now says he will not lead the force in Fallujah. But the move is leading some observers to wonder whether the apparent confusion maybe send the wrong message to the insurgents. And whether the Pentagon intends to make good on its stated aim to capture the killers of four American contractors in Fallujah.

In our “Tough Call” how far will the fallout from these two controversies spread both here in the U.S. and abroad? Let’s find out from Matthew Yglesias, of the American Prospect and Andrew Apostolou, of the Foundation for Defense of Democracies.

Andrew, let me start with you, welcome back, by the way. Interesting development for news out of Iraq over the weekend. How damaging both stories?

ANDREW APOSTOLOU, FOUNDATION FOR DEFENSE OF DEMOCRACIES: The reports of abuse of prisoners whether by American or British troops is completely unacceptable. An absolute disgraceful. And I’m very glad to see that the leaders of the coalition forces whether it’s Brigadier General Kimmitt, or General Sir Michael Jackson — and he is British and unrelated to the gentleman with legal problems in California — have both condemned this out of hand. No excuse whatsoever. That is going to have a negative effect but it’s important that we move ahead with the inquiries.

With regard to the problem in Fallujah, there’s some confusion there. The problem is that the use of Baathists against Baathists needs to be constructed properly. I proposed that in “The Washington Times” today. You need to use insurgents against insurgents in a way that gives them a way out of terrorism but isn’t an amnesty and doesn’t offend their victims. Unfortunately, some Iraqis are very offended by what happened in Fallujah.

SCHAFFLER: Matthew, your turn now. It seems that every time we talk about Iraq it gets more and more complicated. Is there anything that can be done differently? We’ve learned that it seems to be messier than we first thought when we went in.

MATTHEW YGLESIAS, AMERICAN PROSPECT: It certainly does seem to be messier, but I think the plan that John Kerry, slated forth and a lot of liberals have been saying for a long time is that you need to try and get more involvement from the international community and international organizations. It’s very clear that we don’t have the kind of security situation on the ground not only in Fallujah but in towns all over place. In that a larger quantity of forces are needed. The United States really doesn’t have that kind of troop levels at its own disposable.

SCHAFFLER: Andrew, would you agree there needs to be some sort of change in leadership? A different commander in chief?

APOSTOLOU: That’s for Americans to decide, I’m a foreigner, not for me. I think the point is this, you’re grasping at straws if you think either NATO or the U.N. is going to save you in Iraq. The fact is NATO Europe with 2 million men under arms found sending 6,000 to Afghanistan a stretch. The fact is that Iraqis both despise and distrust the U.N. And we’ve seen the way Mr. Brahimi (ph) has behaved recently. It’s hardly very encouraging.

We are stuck with Iraq like it or not. Personally I do like it because we have a responsibility to those people. And we’ve had a responsibility to them because of our terrible mistakes many years ago. And we’re paying a price for the mistakes of 1991. We have to stick with this, it’s going to take time. We have to be patient. I think the U.S. commanders are showing the right kind of leadership so far in Iraq. And we need to keep going.

SCHAFFLER: Matthew, of course, the one thing about being patient that’s hard for some people is more stories about American lives being lost there.

YGLESIAS: Yes. That’s certainly true. As long as the United States is in there alone, then more and more of the proportion of the losses come from us. But I do agree that simply running away at this point isn’t really an option. No matter how mistaken it may have been to come in the first place.

SCHAFFLER: What sort of outside help could the U.S. rely on though? If you could respond to what Andrew said?

YGLESIAS: It’s true as he said that you probably aren’t going to see an enormous number of foreign troops being able to come in. But under the circumstances that we have right now I don’t think we could sneer at 6 or maybe 10,000 soldiers.

Also what you want to do is get more countries invested in the cause of victory. As Andrew, was just saying, once we’ve committed ourselves here, we need to try to see it through. And we need to bring more counties into that range — that group of people who want to see a success here.

SCHAFFLER: Andrew, that brings us back to you. You said not to count on anyone to help the U.S. bail out of Iraq. So, how do you convince countries to go in if they’re not willing to and the situation gets worse?

APOSTOLOU: I don’t think you’re going to be able to convince the French — the only country in the Western world with the troops that are able to do the sort of missions necessary in Iraq. Look at the way they behaved last year. They lied and they were dishonest. And they crossed the red line with regard to their relations with the U.S.

I think it’s wrong though to say you’re alone in Iraq. The fact is there are a large number of British troops there. You know when Britain’s with you, you’re never alone. Of course, you have many other counties represented. And of course you have many thousands of Iraqis.

The fact of life is, there are now more Iraqis under arms — I’m not just talking about the Iraqi security forces, I’m including the Pashmire (ph) and the Kurdish forces, as well — than the coalition forces. The problem we’ve got is the training of these forces and their level of commitment in some places. But, nonetheless, we are steadily building them up. Again, that just takes time.

Anybody who thought this was going to be easy and over with quickly obviously hasn’t read a single page of Iraqi history. That’s not the case however. I can say from having read Mr. Woodward’s, extremely long book with regard to the administration. It’s not the case with regard Mr. Kerry, and his advisors. It’s not the case with the British governments. I think the policy makers know what’s going on. I think Beltway pundits sometimes don’t.

SCHAFFLER: Andrew, more or less confident are you as we get closer to the handover?

APOSTOLOU: I’m more confident as we get closer to the handover with regard to the way in which we’re going to put together the government because Mr. Brahimi (ph), is fortunately retreating from some of his sillier, earlier positions. I’m not confident however that we can fully trust Mr. Brahimi (ph), and the other members of the international community not to try and trip us up. We’ve got to be very careful. He’s a slippery character.

SCHAFFLER: Matthew, quickly more or less confident? That same question for you.

YGLESIAS: Significantly less confident. Mr. Brahimi (ph), is not really the problem here. The problem is we haven’t done anything to resolve the underlying political tensions between these different ethnic and religious groups.

SCHAFFLER: Matthew Yglesias, Andrew Apostolou, thanks for joining me as we once again take a look at what’s happening in Iraq. Appreciate your time, gentlemen.

APOSTOLOU: Pleasure, thank you.

SCHAFFLER: That wraps it up for MARKET CALL today. Thanks for watching. Have a great day. We’ll see you back here tomorrow.