American Accountability

The Democrats — the incoming majority leader, Senator Harry Reid; the incoming Armed Services Committee chairman, Senator Carl Levin; and the incoming Foreign Relations Committee chairman, Senator Joseph R. Biden Jr. — said a phased redeployment of troops would be their top priority when the new Congress convenes in January, even before investigating the conduct of the war.

“We need to begin a phased redeployment of forces from Iraq in four to six months,” Senator Levin, of Michigan, said on the ABC News program “This Week.” Later, in a telephone interview, he added, “The point of this is to signal to the Iraqis that the open-ended commitment is over and that they are going to have to solve their own problems.”

-Democrats to Press Bush to Reduce Troops in Iraq from the New York Times


Usually I'm pretty proud that Levin is from Michigan, but I'm not a huge fan of this statement. Why is he all-out blaming the Iraqis for the problems in their country? It is true (obviously) that these sectarian issues were already present before the US entered in 2003, but the amount of violence has only gotten worse since we've been there. Iraq's actual problems are not our fault, but the way that they are (not) being dealt with right now kind of is. I agree with Levin: the Iraqis do need to solve these problems on their own, but their problems and their current situation are very different, and we cannot forget who got them into the current situation. I don't think we should be there anymore, but the tone of this statement isn't what I was looking for. With this change in leadership, I was looking forward to a new level of accountability for the issues of the war in Iraq (at least as they relate to the US), but I guess that was just too much to hope for.

PS I don't understand what phased redeployment means, anyone want to explain that to me?