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  Our most urgent challenge in Iraq is convincing the insurgents that we will pack and leave once a directly-elected government is installed.  Distrust of U.S. intentions is the root cause of the bloody rebellion that seems to gain strength each month.  Is the Bush Administration honest in stating that its objective is a stable, democratic Iraq?  Or is that just a cover for permanent military bases that will enable the U.S. government to dominate Iraq far into the future.

Here are a few of the reasons why Iraqis distrust U.S. intentions:

• Headlines and newscasts are replete with forecasts by administration officials that U.S. troops will be needed in Iraq for years.

•  “Neocons” in the Defense Department long ago urged an invasion of Iraq as a step toward U.S. control of the Middle East.  Retired U.S. General Anthony Zinni, former chief of the U.S. Central Command, publicly stated recently that “everyone” in Washington knows that oil and Israel are the real reasons for the war.

• Beginning with the thunderous, devastating “shock and awe” opening round,  U.S. military assaults have left over 100,000 Iraqi civilians dead, with other thousands wounded and/or homeless, and vast areas, including the great historic city of Fallujah, in ruins. 

• No serious shakeup or reprimand in high places followed the disclosure of U.S. torture and humiliation of detainees.

• Administration officials handpicked the interim Iraqi government in its entirely.  The prime minister, Ayad Allawi, resided for a long period in the United States, had close links with the CIA, and earlier was a close colleague of Saddam Hussein, once serving as the dictator’s hatchet man in Europe.

• At the end of the 1991 Gulf War, the U.S. government urged the Iraqis to overthrow Saddam.  This prompted a strong uprising, but the U.S. government refused to provide support in any form.  This refusal prompted Saddam to use helicopter gun-ships to slaughter dissidents by the hundreds.              

• For a decade after the Gulf War, U.S. fighter planes enforced severe sanctions that led to immense civilian suffering, including the death of at least a half-million Iraqi infants.  

• In the l980s--the height of Saddam’s cruel treatment of Kurds and other Iraqi citizens—the U.S. government served as the dictator’s silent, uncomplaining partner, helping him battle Iran.

• Before invading Iraq in 2003, the Bush administration ignored offers of conciliation from Saddam emissaries.

• President Bush has failed to make any moves to redress what is seen as America’s anti-Arab/Muslim bias.  Bush talks of independence for Palestinians but continues to support without complaint Israel’s brutal treatment of them.

  Distrust of the U.S. government is virulent throughout the Arab world and beyond, not just in Iraq, and our government does almost nothing to dispel it. 

  If the administration fails to establish credibility, the rebellion will intensify.  The best first step is to convince the Iraqis quickly that we will leave the minute the new directly-elected government wants us out.  President Bush must pledge, without qualification, that the timing and extent of our withdrawal will be controlled by Iraq.  

  To make this promise believable, Bush must state clearly that our government will withdraw all U.S. military forces and all U.S. contractors and dismantle all U.S. military bases within a few weeks after the new government takes office.  The only exceptions should be military units or contractors the new Iraqi government may wish to remain.   Such units will remain only as long as the new government wishes. 

  Our government must also promise unequivocally that once the new Iraqi government takes office, the U.S. diplomatic mission, now bursting with a staff of ominous size--more than 2,000 persons, the largest in recorded history--will quickly be reduced to a standard level.

  Whatever his original motives, Bush must take prompt, rigorous steps to erase Iraqi fear of U.S. colonialism.  Otherwise, his page in history will be bleaker than President Lyndon Johnson’s legacy from the Vietnam War.

  In Iraq, trust--not military manpower--is the greatest and gravest shortage.  More troops will inspire more insurgency, not less.

Paul Findley, a Member of Congress 1961-83, writes and lectures on Middle East issues.  His book, They Dare to Speak Out: People and Institutions Confront Israel’s Lobby, a 7-week bestseller on the Washington Post list, has sold over 300,000 copies.