After Three Years, Iraq War Far from Resolved

March 20, 2006 — -- Three years ago, the bombs started falling in Baghdad in advance of an American-led invasion -- and today, rhetorical bombs continue to fly between opposing camps with very different views on the war's successes, its failures and its future.

President Bush said Sunday that the sacrifices that have been made -- and the ones to come -- will pay off for Iraq and America.

"We are implementing a strategy that will lead to victory in Iraq," he said, "and a victory in Iraq will make this country more secure and will help lay the foundation of peace for generations to come."

But, in an interview on British television, the former prime minister of Iraq, Ayad Allawi, said his country already has descended into civil war.

"If this is not civil war," he told the BBC, "then God knows what civil war is."

Here in the United States, politicians, lead by former hawk Rep. John Murtha, D-Pa., are increasingly decrying the war and calling for an "exit strategy" that will bring troops home sooner rather than later.

"We can only do so much," Murtha said. "We can't be a police for the whole world. We can't nation build. You've got to have the support of the Iraqi people -- we've lost the support of the Iraqi people. They had their election, it's time to turn it over to them."

A new Newsweek poll says Americans disapprove of Bush's handling of the war by a more than 2-1 margin. Sixty-five percent said they disapproved, while 29 percent approved. The poll had a 3 percent margin of error.

But faced with the all the unpopularity and uncertainty, Bush and his advisers remained upbeat. Administration officials were relentlessly on-message Sunday as they marked the three-year anniversary.

The tone was set by the president himself. As he returned to the White House from Camp David, Bush stopped to deliver his message of progress and patience.

"Now the Iraqi leaders are working together to enact a government that reflects the will of the people," Bush told reporters. "And so I'm encouraged by the progress."

Other top administration officials echoed the president's upbeat tone in a full-court press over the airwaves.

"It continues to improve day by day," Vice President Dick Cheney told CBS' "Face the Nation." "Those are the facts on the ground. That's the reality."

Said Gen. George Casey, the commanding general of the multi-national force in Iraq: "We continue to make great progress with the Iraqi security forces."

In The Washington Post Sunday, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld wrote: "Now is the time for resolve, not retreat. … Turning our backs on postwar Iraq today would be the modern equivalent of handing postwar Germany back to the Nazis."