In My Time - Dick Cheney [229]
We also underestimated the extent to which the Shia felt betrayed by the United States after Desert Storm. In 1991 we had encouraged them to rise up against Saddam. When they did, Saddam slaughtered thousands of them and we did not, for the most part, come to their aid. They were understandably fearful that we would abandon them again.
Much has been written about the internal debates we had in the period when the Coalition Provisional Authority was running Iraq. I tend to think that hindsight in this area is twenty-twenty. We had tremendously talented people working hard in Baghdad—military and civilian—to accomplish an exceedingly difficult task. They didn’t always get it right. And we didn’t always get it right in Washington. It is possible, for example, that we could have avoided the impression of an American occupation had we established a provisional Iraqi government from the outset.
Once we had turned over sovereignty in June 2004, we looked toward political milestones, such as elections and the adoption of a constitution, in the belief that they would be followed by reduced levels of violence. As the Iraqis took control of their own country, we believed the terrorists and insurgents would have difficulty continuing to fight. They would be seen as attacking Iraqis who were simply trying to run their own country. When violence increased, we thought the enemy was lashing out in final acts of desperation, last efforts to terrorize and destroy before a self-governing Iraq made such attacks futile, even counterproductive. That was the context of my comment in May 2005 that the insurgents were “in the last throes.” I believed they were.
At the end of the day, it’s important to remember that the ultimate blame for the violence and bloodshed in Iraq after liberation lies with those who created it—the terrorists and those who were supporting them, primarily al Qaeda and Iran. They were a determined and ruthless enemy, committed to causing mass casualties among Iraqi civilians and American soldiers. They wanted to create chaos, break our will, and force us to leave. In January 2004 American forces had captured an al Qaeda courier who was carrying a letter from Abu Musab al Zarqawi to al Qaeda leaders. The letter detailed Zarqawi’s plan to foment sectarian violence between Shia and Sunni in Iraq by “targeting and striking [Shiite] religious, political, and military symbols” and “dragging them into a sectarian war.” He went on to declare that “fighting the Shia is the way to take the nation to battle.” He also made clear how much al Qaeda feared democracy, writing that when “the sons of this land will be the authority . . . we will have no pretext. We can pack up and leave and look for another land.”
The Shia refused to be dragged into sectarian violence for over two years. Then at dawn on February 6, 2006, explosions destroyed the golden dome of the Askariya Mosque in Samarra, one of the holiest sites for Shiite Islam. Planned by Zarqawi, the bombing had the effect he intended, inflaming the Shia and plunging the country into a deeper sectarian conflict. Understanding that Iraq was the central front in the War on Terror, al Qaeda was intent on victory. We had to decide whether we would stick with a strategy that emphasized transferring responsibility to Iraqis and getting our troops out,