Top negotiator: U.S. must ‘stay the course’ in Iraq

Thursday, April 22, 2004 | 9:16 a.m.

A Middle Eastern negotiator who has spent more than 12 years dealing with Arab, Israeli and Palestinian leaders under two U.S. presidents said it will be five to 10 years before the United States can leave Iraq.

"We are in for tough times," Ambassador Dennis Ross, distinguished fellow and director of the Washington Institute for Near East Policy in Washington, D.C., said at a lecture Wednesday night at Temple Beth Sholom.

Terrorist bombs exploded in Basra, Iraq and Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, Wednesday, killing women and children as well as police and soldiers.

"This is not going to turn around soon," Ross said.

Ross served under Presidents George H.W. Bush and Bill Clinton as point man for the Middle East.

For President George W. Bush to declare war on Iraq last year, the president had to have critical assumptions about what would happen afterward, Ross said.

"It's not fair to say there was no plan for the aftermath," he said. "Their assumptions were wrong."

Bush officials believed there would be massacres after Saddam Hussein was gone. They believed there was a good possibility of mass starvation and oil fields being set afire.

"But they were wrong," Ross said. "Was there a failure of intelligence? Absolutely."

What the Bush team did not plan for was a vacuum left after a tyrannical cult leader fell, Ross said. The U.S. dropped 20 million leaflets over Iraq before the war promising everything would be fine after Saddam's overthrow, but it took nine months to restore electricity to people who had power for lights, televisions and fans under Saddam, Ross said.

This month's escalating violence in Iraq spells out how deeply rooted insurgency is and that there is more public support for those battling the United States, now seen as an occupier.

It could become more dangerous if the U.S. kills Middle Eastern leaders, who would become martyrs and create more terrorists flaming with anti-American hatred, Ross said.

"Having been wrong about Iraq, nobody believes us," he said. "This administration cannot carry the weight for us, having been wrong."

Yet the United States cannot walk away from the war in Iraq.

"We cannot afford to lose in Iraq," Ross said, noting that presumptive presidential opponent Sen. John Kerry has not said he would pull out of Iraq. "We will have to stay the course."

However, Ross said he is nervous about the U.S. political handoff scheduled for June 30 that would place Iraq under a caretaker government until Jan. 5, 2005, elections.

Ross expects insurgents to intensify terrorist attacks after that date.

"Our main objective right now has to be to buy time," Ross said.

In his book, "The Missing Piece," due out in August, Ross said he advises world leaders to give up mythologies and tell the truth to one another as a way out of wars and escalating terrorism.

In order to win the war against radical Muslims, the world must discredit them, Ross said. Beyond battling radical ideas, however, leaders must find a path to hope, he said.

"If we can get away from war, there is something to work with," Ross said.00