Why was the Jordanian Embassy bombed in Baghdad? There may never be a specific answer, but the incident underscores just how long America will have to help the New Iraq defend itself from its neighbors
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Aug. 7 - We were all out in the noonday sun today, American soldiers, Iraqi bystanders, a motley array of reporters, sweltering in heat that would have been 120 in the shade, if there had been any shade around the shattered Jordanian Embassy in Baghdad.
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Lt. Col. Eric Nantz from the 101st Airborne, standing amid shards of shrapnel on the side of the highway, said he’d been at his headquarters “several miles away” when he heard the blast at about 10:30 in the morning. Now at the scene, he figured at least eight people were dead, mostly Iraqis, and some of those were members of the newly recruited Iraqi police. (By the end of the day, estimates of the fatalities had risen to at least 11.) Investigators weren’t sure yet who set off the bomb or how, he said. “They are trying to determine if the individual was in the car or got out of the car and, of course: why?”
Good luck. The specific answer to that last question probably won’t be had soon or ever. But a general one is easy. “This is a rough neighborhood,” as Israeli politicians like to say when they talk about their country’s security concerns. It’s the roughest neighborhood in the world, in fact. And motives for violence are almost as plentiful as the guns and bombs to carry it out.
On Baghdad’s streets this afternoon, folks were saying Jordan’s Embassy was targeted because Jordan helped the United States in the last war, or because it helped Saddam Hussein in previous ones, or because it gave asylum to his daughters just a few days ago. Jordan’s intelligence services cooperate very closely with the CIA in the war on terror, and it’s possible they did something we’ve never heard about that brought this vengeful bomb to their doorstep. Or maybe the embassy was bombed just because a lot of Iraqis despise the Jordanians. A small mob broke into the embassy soon after the explosion to tear down and trample photographs of Jordanian monarchs.
But the Iraqis had better be careful. You don’t dis people in this neighborhood and figure they’ll just forget it, even those relatively weak Jordanians. Sooner or later, sabers rattle. And once-mighty Iraq doesn’t have a saber in its sheath right now. It doesn’t even have a pocket knife. Since the troops stripped off their uniforms and walked home rather than face the American juggernaut in March and April, Iraq has no army at all of its own. This week, training began for the first 1,000 soldiers in a new Iraqi military. Two years from now, if all goes well, the United States plans for Iraq to have three motorized divisions totaling only about 40,000 troops—and no air force to speak of.
So at a press conference this afternoon (in the merciful cool of Saddam’s old convention center), I asked Gen. Ricardo Sanchez, commander of the 150,000 or so American and other Coalition forces here, if he thought the Iraqis could really feel secure with such a small force. He saw what I was getting at. “We look to be able to disengage as rapidly as possible and have Iraq stand up and be able to take care of [its own defense] over time,” he said. But how much time would that be? More than two years? “At a minimum,” said Sanchez, “an absolute minimum, we’ll have to be here that long.”
Sanchez knows better. We’re here forever. The simple fact about the New Iraq is that never in our lifetimes will it be able to defend itself from its neighbors. It will always be dependent on the United States to do that job. And because it floats on oil, and because all its neighbors—and all of us—have a vital stake in its future, it’s going to take a lot of defending.
Just look around. In that handy guide to global armies “The Military Balance,” compiled by the International Institute for Strategic Studies, you’ll find that of the six countries bordering Iraq, only Kuwait will have an army smaller than the one planned for Baghdad (15,400). On the other hand, Iran has some 520,000 people under arms (and may soon have nukes); Turkey has 515,000 (and a full-blown NATO arsenal); Syria has 319,000 (and chemical and biological weapons); Saudi Arabia has 200,000 (including its National Guard), and even little Jordan has 100,000. Not to mention nearby Israel, which has 161,000 soldiers on active duty, an enormous technological edge and, oh, yes, absolutely does have nuclear weapons.
Saddam used his 400,000-man military recklessly and fecklessly for more than 20 years, but that doesn’t mean his country can by defended with only 10 per cent of that force. And the folks at the Pentagon, of all people, know that. No treaty is good enough for them when it comes to America’s own defense needs. They don’t trust anybody, not even their old partners in NATO. Do they really believe that the Middle East will see such peace and harmony that Iraq can survive on its own as a fully sovereign and independent state with such a puny fighting force? Of course not.
“The end-state of the army will be finalized in conjunction with the new Iraqi government,” says Sanchez, dodging any further questions on the subject. But the defense imperatives for that as yet unconstituted and unelected government are going to be, in many ways, just the same as they’ve always been. To “stand up” and do the job alone it would have to have the men or the technology or both to deter its neighbors. That means hundreds of thousands of troops. It would have to have a potent air force. And missiles. And very probably it would want to have … weapons of mass destruction. Or it will have to have Uncle Sam.
No choice there. And no wonder L. Paul Bremer, Washington’s administrator in Baghdad, talks about “we” and “us” when he talks about the Iraqi people. This is our neighborhood now, as much as theirs. And we’d better get used to it.
