Former Iraq Diplomats Urge Patience to Houston Forum Two former U.S. ambassadors to Iraq told a Rice University audience on Wednesday that Americans must brace for the long haul in Iraq if diplomatic and military efforts to stabilize that country are to succeed. Ambassadors Ryan C. Crocker and John D. Negroponte described a bumpy and winding road ahead for the U.S. in Iraq during a panel discussion at Rice's James A. Baker III Institute. “The Iraq story post-2003, this is still chapter one,” Crocker said, referring to the year the U.S. invaded that country. “And we probably have 37 chapters ahead of us. This is a very long book.” Negroponte recalled that when he left Iraq in March 2005, he sent an end-of-tour report to the president and secretary of state arguing that it would take another five years to stabilize Iraq. Nobody in Washington wanted to hear a five-year forecast, Negroponte said. “If we as a nation decide to get involved in these types of conflicts, we've got to understand that they take more time and involve more resources than we ever anticipate to begin with,” he said. Negroponte was deputy secretary of state under the George W. Bush administration. He served as first ambassador to Iraq in the post-Saddam era and the Bush administration's first director of national intelligence Crocker retired this year after 37 years in the foreign service. He served as ambassador to Iraq from 2007 to 2009 and previously served as ambassador to Pakistan, Syria, Kuwait and Lebanon. Crocker helped negotiate the U.S.-Iraqi security agreement that calls for all U.S. combat troops to withdraw from Iraq by August, but he cautioned against drawing down civilian reconstruction teams too fast. “I'm a little bit concerned by a certain train of thought that says OK, forces are drawing down, we should go back to a normal civilian response, to conducting a normal bilateral relationship,” he said. “We may get there someday … but that's not where we are now.” Crocker said he considers Negroponte's five-year estimate from 2005 “breathtakingly short.” “These processes take a long time and no amount of good ideas generated from Washington can be dispatched by FedEx to Iraq and laid down in a template and made to work,” he said. In response to an audience member's question about recent terrorist attacks in Iraq, Crocker said the targets appear to have shifted from sectarian populations to government symbols. “They're directed against the government to show the government as being weak, ineffective, unable to govern,” he said. With Iraqi national elections scheduled for January, the attacks and simmering tensions between the Kurds and Arabs are just a few of the challenges facing the Iraqi government and the Americans moving forward, Crocker said. “This will take continued engagement and continued commitment,” he said, “and I hope the American government and the American people appreciate that.” |
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