Will Iraq's Army Show Up?

PRESIDENT BUSH is sending an additional 21,000 American troops to match a promised 8,000 Iraqi soldiers to win the decisive battle of Baghdad. When one in every 1,000 inhabitants of a nation's capital city is being killed every other month, there is no question that the country is failing. The question is what chance the president's prescription has of success.

Those who have followed events in Iraq over the past year cannot avoid the feeling that this is déjà vu all over again, as Yogi Berra once put it. Indeed, this is the third time in the past seven months that the president and his generals have identified rising sectarian violence in Baghdad as the problem and prescribed more American and Iraqi troops as the solution. As Iraq's national security adviser stated in October: "Baghdad is the core of the issue. It's Baghdad, Baghdad, Baghdad."

In each previous call-up, the American troops arrived and performed. In each previous case, the Iraqi Army units summoned were mostly no-shows. At the end of each previous quarter, the number of Baghdadis dying in sectarian attacks increased -- tripling over the six months to 17,310.

To be specific, last June 14 President Bush announced a new Operation Together Forward for Baghdad. He said: "A joint effort to restore security and rule of law to high-risk areas in the capital city [would be] carried out by some 26,000 Iraqi soldiers backed up by 7,200 coalition forces." When the dust settled, no more than 9,000 Iraqi Army soldiers had showed up.

Failure in Phase I led to the launch Aug. 8 of what was called "Operation Together Forward II." The announcement of that initiative stated that "6,000 additional Iraqi Security Forces would be sent" to match an additional 5,500 Americans. But in September, when the US commander in Baghdad was asked whether the Iraqis had met their commitment, he replied: "We asked for two additional Army brigades [4,000 soldiers],and they're still trying to fill that requirement. To date, they have moved approximately two battalions [1,000 soldiers] into our battle space." As the bipartisan Iraqi Study Group reported in December, "The Iraqi Army has provided only two out of the six battalions that it promised in August would join American forces in Baghdad."

More than half a year into this joint undertaking for what both Iraqis and Americans agree is the decisive battle of the war, the United States has committed 15,000 soldiers to this effort, but no more than 10,000 Iraqi Army combat forces have ever been seen in Baghdad.

In the process of consultation and negotiation leading up to last Wednesday's announcement, President Bush had a heated teleconference with Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki. According to press reports, Maliki pledged three additional Iraqi brigades -- that is, 6,000 soldiers. In his public comments, however, Maliki has assiduously avoided any numbers or timetables.

No American military commander imagines that US forces can win the battle of Baghdad by themselves. Without the Iraqi army units required to accompany American troops in clearing neighborhoods, and holding those neighborhoods after Americans have moved on, the results of the third phase of this battle will be more of the same. Three months or six months on, President Bush will find himself in another crisis where failure of Iraqis to do their part in rescuing themselves will leave Americans even deeper in the hole he finds us today.

The only hope for an acceptable outcome in Baghdad is for Iraq's army to share the burden for securing Baghdad. The only hope for an acceptable outcome in Iraq is for Iraqi political leaders, Shi'ite and Sunni, to conclude that acceptance of what have so far been unacceptable compromises is better than being left to fight a bloody civil war.

The additional 21,000 brave American soldiers whom President Bush is sending into harm's way are pawns in a negotiation with the military and political leadership of Iraq. We can pray, but we should not expect that somehow congenital no-shows will this time show up and do their part.