Election Issue: Iraq
(abridged and easier reading)

By Alan Shapiro

To the Teacher:

A key November election issue is Iraq. The president defends his policy fiercely, warning that a withdrawal now would leave Americans at risk of "terrorist attacks in the streets of our own cities," while Democrats charge Republicans with having "nothing but fear to sell."

The student readings below provide an overview of the Iraq situation from multiple perspectives, reports of public opinion polls on the war, and political arguments on what the U.S. should do. Discussion questions and classroom activities follow. Teachers can find sources of quotes and statistics in the full version of this lesson (Iraq 9-06).

Also available on this website are a number of earlier materials on the Iraq over the past three and one-half years.

Student Reading 1
Life in Iraq after the US Invasion

What is the situation in Iraq? The United States Agency for International Development (USAID) is responsible for many projects in Iraq. It recently reported progress on everything from the planting of thousands of olive trees and reconstructing Iraq's power and sewage plants to citizenship workshops.

But the office of the Special Inspector General for Iraq Reconstruction reported that there are many unfinished projects in Iraq as wellósuch as work on power and sewage plants. It said that planners did not take into consideration the hundreds of millions of dollars in administrative and other costs needed to keep these plants running. And they didn't foresee the violence that makes the completion of projects more time-consuming and sometimes even impossible.

The United Nations reported that this violence has resulted in at least 17,776 civilian deaths from January-July 2006. In July alone 3,438 people were killed-more than 100 every day and nearly double the death toll in January.

In July, 2,625 IEDs ("improvised explosive devices") were found throughout Iraq, almost double the January number and the highest monthly total since the war began. Of these, 1,666 exploded, while the rest were discovered before they detonated.

As of August 2006, more than 2,600 US soldiers had been killed in Iraq and thousands of others had been very seriously wounded.

According to the Brookings Institution, as of June people living in Baghdad got 7.6 hours of electricity a day, the rest of the country got 11.8 hours. In Iraq nationwide, 28% to 40% of the population was unemployed. Since 2003, 40% of the Iraqi professional class has left the country.

Oil produced by Iraq amounted to 1.4 million barrels of oil a day for the first five months of this year. Iraq's pre-war oil production was 2.5 million barrels of oil a day. One major reason for the low Iraqi oil production is 317 pipeline attacks as of the end of July. Another major reason is corruption, according to the Iraqi national security advisor. In oil-rich southern Basra about 6,000 barrels of oil profit go daily "into the pockets ofÖwarlords, militias, organized crime, political parties."

The Iraqi government said that fuel and electricity prices are almost three times what they were last year. Egg prices have doubled. The price of the gas cylinders most families use for cooking is five times higher. Fuel prices are sharply higher and supplies are short. There are long lines at gas stations.

By the end of 2005, 889,000 Iraqis had moved abroad as refugees since the war began in 2003, mostly to Syria and Jordan. This figure is more than double the 366,000 refugees counted at the end of 2004, according to the United States Committee for Refugees and Immigrants.

For discussion

1. What questions do students have about the reading? How might they be answered?

2. Imagine that you are an ordinary Iraqi. What items cited in Part One of this reading would be especially important to you? Why? What do they say about the likely quality of your life?

3. What do the statistics about Iraqi refugees say to you about life in Iraq?

Student Reading 2
Sectarianism in Iraq

Kidnappings, murders, car bombings, and armed clashes between Iraq's Sunni Muslims and Shiite Muslims occur every day. This conflict became larger and even more violent after a bombing of the Shiite Golden Mosque in Samarra on February 22. In revenge, Shiite militias killed 1,000 Sunnis and attacked Sunni mosques. Savage fighting between Shiites and Sunnis followed in what now looks like a civil war.

Top military and civilian leaders testified before the Senate Armed Services Committee on August 3. General John Abizaid, commander of American forces in the Middle East, said, "I believe that the sectarian violence is probably as bad as I've seen it, in Baghdad in particular, and that if not stopped, it is possible that Iraq could move toward civil war." General Peter Pace, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, agreed.

The daily mayhem in Baghdad also includes an insurgency by Sunnis. This growing conflict led to the US to add 7,000 American troops and 5,000 Iraqi soldiers in the capital. There were already 9,000 American troops, 8,500 Iraqi soldiers and 34,500 Iraqi police officers working to provide security in Baghdad. In a neighborhood-by-neighborhood sweep, they began working to clear the city of insurgents and militias. Late in August, General Abizaid said the situation in Baghdad had improved.

Baghdad sectarian violence is often aimed at "ethnic cleansing." In Shiite areas Shiite militias force Sunnis out or kill them. The reverse takes place in Sunni neighborhoods.

Sunni Muslims are only about 20 percent of the Iraqi population. But they ran the country for decades, including during the reign of Saddam Hussein, who is Sunni. About 60 percent of Iraqis are Shiites and 20 percent are Kurds. Saddam Hussein's troops killed many tens of thousands of Shiites and Kurds during their 1991 revolts against his rule following the Gulf War. Today Shiites and Kurds control the leading positions in the government. Many Sunnis are angry and resentful about this.

There is also fighting between Shiite factions in southern Iraq. Sectarian militias infiltrate and even control police units. Insurgents and criminals wearing stolen uniforms identifying them as security officials kidnap people for ransom and commit other crimes.

The Iraqi military is weak. It has practically no air force. It relies on Americans for many things, including medical care. At any given time, about one-third of an Iraqi unit is either away on leave or has deserted.

The Iraqi government operates from the heavily fortified and guarded "Green Zone" in Baghdad and has little power. It cannot maintain law and order or provide the services expected of governments. It has no authority in northern Iraq, where Kurds have run a separate government for years. In southern Iraq, there is a movement for a separate government under strict Shiite rule. Militias there already enforce religious rules.

Iran, which neighbors Iraq, is another important element in the security situation. A majority of Iranians are Shiite. Some members of the mostly Shiite Iraqi government took refuge in Iran during Saddam Hussein's rule in Iraq. They and other Shiite leaders have close ties to Iran, which is said to provide money, training and weapons to Shiite militias.

Iraq could split up into small states. The people in neighboring Turkey, Iran and Syria include many Kurds. The governments of those countries oppose an independent Kurdistan that could attract their own Kurdish citizens. They would fight to prevent it.

Sunni Arab countries like Saudi Arabia and Syria oppose any Shiite state in the south of Iraq. Most of Iraq's vast oil reserves are in the north and south. If Kurds control the north and Shiites the south, they would also control most of Iraq's oil wealth. Sunnis in Baghdad and the west of Iraq could be left out of the benefits from Iraq's major source of income. That would probably lead to even more violence.

Nobody can state accurately the numbers of foreign fighters in Iraq. The most common estimate is about 1,500. In January 2005, the CIA's internal think tank, the National Intelligence Council, said that Iraq had replaced Afghanistan as the training ground for a new generation of jihadist terrorists. The country has become "a magnet for international terrorist activity,: said the council's chairman, Robert Hutchings."

"Be polite, be professional and have a plan to kill everyone you meet."
-óa Marine poster

For discussion

1. Have students pair up in twos facing each other. Ask them to bring their own knowledge and opinions to the following question: If you were responsible for assessing progress in Iraq, what would be the three most important items you would base it on? Each student has no more than two minutes to respond, after which they might discuss any differences for a few minutes. Remind students that when they are listeners, their goal is to focus their complete attention on the speaker and listen in interested silence.

2. Invite reports from a number of sets of pairs. What seem to be the three chief criteria students would use to measure progress?

3. Ask students to return to their pairs. This time ask the following question: How do you assess the progress on each criterion? Proceed as above.

4. Invite general class discussion:

• What further questions do students have about the readings? How might they be answered?
• How would you define "civil war"? What evidence is there for civil war in Iraq?
• What evidence is there that the situation has not yet reached that point?
• What do you understand "ethnic cleansing" to mean? Are those words appropriate to describe what is happening in Baghdad? Why or why not?
• What problems are there with the Iraqi security forces?
• Why is there a danger of Iraq's breaking up?
• Why do you suppose that Iraq has become "a magnet" for foreign terrorists?
• What does the Marine poster say to you about the situation in Iraq?

Student Reading 3
A Country Divided Over Iraq

No election issue divides Americans more than the Iraq war.

A New York Times/CBS News poll of July 21-25 reported that three-quarters of Republicans said the US was right to invade Iraq; only 24 percent of Democrats did. Independents were split. Major reasons for this big political division included:

• strong differences of opinion about President Bush
• the Democrats' doubts about the use of force, "especially without broad international support,"
• the Republicans' loyalty to President Bush "for his handling of the fight against terrorism"
• the opinion that Democratic criticisms of Bush harm the effort to fight terrorism

Overall, 62% of Americans "disapproved of the way George W. Bush is handling the situation with Iraq" while 32% approved.

Supporters of the two parties even disagree about what is happening in Iraq, according to a poll by the Pew Research Center for People and Press (6/20/06). The poll asked if the US is making progress:

• in training Iraqi forces
• in rebuilding infrastructure
• in establishing democracy
• in preventing a terrorist base for attacks
• in defeating the insurgency

Eighty-one percent of Republicans answered "yes" to these questions. Sixty-seven percent of Democrats answered "no." Independents were split. According to an August CNN poll, a majority of Americans supports the withdrawal of at least some troops by the end of this year.

Republican Views

Most Republican Congressional candidates support the president's policy. The Bush administration says its aim is to develop "a peaceful, united, stable, and secure Iraq." This policy is vital to the US"because it will help win the war on terror and make America safer, stronger, and more certain of its future."

The president maintains that the success of this policy requires that the US"stay the course in Iraq. As Iraqi security "stands up," US troops can "stand down." Bush says that "there are a lot of people in the Democrat Party who believe that the best course of action is to leave Iraq before the job is done, period, and they're wrong."

The Bush administration links Iraq with 9/11 and "the war on terror." When the president declared "the end of major combat operations" on May 1, 2003, he added, "With those [9/11] attacks, the terrorists and their supporters declared war on the United States. And war is what they got." He said on August 30, "If we give up the fight in the streets of Baghdad, we will face the terrorists in the streets of our own cities."

Vice President Cheney said, "If we follow [Democratic] advice and withdraw from Iraq, we will simply validate the Al Qaeda strategy and invite more terrorist attacks."

The president's overall public approval rating, according to the August 17-21 the New York Times/CBS News poll, was 36%. But on his handling of "terrorism," it was 55%. The Republican National Committee urged Republican candidates in the Congressional election campaign to question their Democratic opponent's "commitment to the war on terror" and to make clear how their position differs from the Democrats'.

Democratic Views

Most Democrats see the president's Iraq policies as a failure and call for the removal of US troops in some kind of phased withdrawal.

Congressman John Murtha of Pennsylvania, a longtime strong supporter of the US military, was the first prominent Democrat to state publicly that the US was failing in Iraq. He said that the US occupation of Iraq helped to make the insurgency worse. He called for US troops to be withdrawn from Iraq and redeployed nearby. Other Democrats followed his lead.

Democratic candidates also reject the idea that the Iraq war and the fight against "terrorism" are the same. They argue that there was no evidence of terrorists in Iraq before the US invasion. They add that foreign terrorists have now been attracted to Iraq to fight the US Representative Rahm Emanuel of Illinois, chairman of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, said of the Republican effort to link Iraq with the terror threat, "they've only got fear to sell."

In the August 2006 Connecticut Democratic primary election, anti-war candidate Ned Lamont defeated once-powerful Democratic Senator Joseph Lieberman, a supporter of the war. After his victory, Lamont said, "Stay the course-that's not a winning strategy in Iraq and it's not a winning strategy for America." He also asked voters to consider the domestic costs of spending $250 million a day in Iraq.

Said Lamont: "Americans are tired of being told [that] anything but the Bush-Cheney-Lieberman line on defense is akin to support for al-Qaeda. Our best chance of success requires that Iraqis take control of their own destiny. America should make it clear that we have no designs on their oil and no plans for permanent bases. While we will continue to provide logistical and training support as long as we are asked, our frontline military troops should begin to be redeployed and our troops should start heading home."

Democratic senators John Kerry (MA) and Russ Feingold (WI), both possible presidential candidates in 2008, said that the US should organize an international meeting of Iraqi leaders, leaders of neighboring countries, representatives of the Arab League, NATO, the European Union, and the UN Security Council. They should create a plan that Sunnis, Shiites, and Kurds would support. It would guarantee sharing oil money fairly, disbanding militias, strengthening security, and reviving reconstruction efforts.

Moving Opinion Poll

Moving opinion polls are a way to get students up and moving as they place themselves along a STRONGLY AGREE----STRONGLY DISAGREE continuum according to their opinions about specific statements.

The most powerful aspect of this exercise is the insight, new to many students, that people can disagree without fighting. In fact, people can listen to various points of view respectfully and even rethink their own opinions upon hearing the views of others.

Create a corridor of space in your room from one end to the other end that is long enough and wide enough to accommodate your whole class. Make two large signs and post them on opposite sides of the room: Strongly Agree and Strongly Disagree.

Explain to students: "You will be participating in a moving opinion poll. Each time you hear a statement, move to the place along the imaginary line that most closely reflects your opinion. If you strongly agree you will move all the way to one side of the room. If you strongly disagree you will move all the way to the opposite side of the room. You can place yourself anywhere in the middle, especially if you have mixed feelings about the question. After you have all placed yourself along the continuum, I will invite people to state why they are standing where they are. This is not a time to debate or grill each other. Rather this is a way to check out what people are thinking and get a sense of the different ways people perceive the issue."

When you do this activity, begin with statements that indicate non-controversial preferences like, "Apple pie is the best of all pies" or "Tennis is the best spectator sport." Then introduce any of the questions cited in the polls referred to in the reading. You might want to change questions slightly by introducing different qualifiers, conditions and contexts to see if students' opinions shift.

Once students have positioned themselves in response to a question, ask each cluster of students to explain their position and ask clarifying questions. Once different groups have made their arguments, give students whose views have shifted because of the discussion a chance to change their position on the continuum.

For discussion

1. What seem to be the issues on which there is most class agreement? Disagreement?

2. How would you explain such agreements? Disagreements?

3. How would you explain the division in the US over the Iraq war?

4. Why do you suppose there is division even over what is happening in Iraq?

5. Where do the congressional candidates in the students' district and state stand on the Iraq War? What questions do students have about these positions? How might they be answered?

6. What questions do students have about the reading? How might they be answered?

7. Describe President Bush's policy for Iraq. What do you think are its strengths? Its weaknesses?

8. According to Democrats, what is wrong with this strategy? What are their ideas for a better one? What do you see as the strengths and weaknesses of each of their ideas?

9. No one is likely to argue that there is no terrorist threat to the US and other countries. But a major difference between most Republicans and most Democrats concerns any connection between the war in Iraq and terrorism. How and why do they tend to view this issue differently? How do you view it?

10. Why do you suppose that the Republican National Committee urges Republican candidates "to question your opponent's commitment to the defeat of terror andÖcreate a definitive contrast on this issue"?

11. How do you assess the comments of Vice President Cheney and Speaker of the House Hastert? Of Democratic minority leader Pelosi. The Kerry-Feingold plan for Iraq?

For inquiry

1. Violence: Obviously, this is the major problem in Iraq. What forms does violence take in Iraq daily? What seem to be the purposes of those who commit it? An excellent source is Juan Cole's daily blog, "Informed Comment" (www.juancole.com). A professor of Middle East studies at the University of Michigan and a speaker of several languages of that region, Cole also offers access on a regular basis to other sources of information on Iraq.

2. Islamic Sects: What are the origins of the split in Islam that led to the creation of the Sunni and Shiite sects? What significant differences are there between them today?

3. Oil is Iraq's most valuable natural resource.

• What are Iraq's known oil reserves and how do they compare with reserves in other oil-producing countries such as Saudi Arabia and Iran?
• Why are Iraqis suffering from a major gasoline shortage?
• What major problems prevent Iraq from pumping more oil?
• Why does it lack refining facilities?
• Where are Iraq's major oil fields, and how does that relate to Iraq's different factions?
• How much money does the Iraqi government take in from its oil exports?
• Where does this money go?

4. The Green Zone: Where is it? How extensive is it? What is in it?

5. Military bases: What major military bases does the US have in Iraq? What facilities are there in these bases? What are the functions of these bases? Why are they so extensive?

6. "National Strategy for Victory in Iraq": Read and study this strategy. What are its key elements? What questions do they raise? How would the Bush administration answer them? How would you evaluate the strategy and why?

7. Election campaign: Follow closely one election campaign for the Senate or House in which the Iraq war is a significant issue. The Connecticut senatorial race is one such campaign. How do the candidates define what the US should do about Iraq? What supporting evidence do they use to support their ideas? How do you evaluate those ideas?

This lesson was written for TeachableMoment.Org, a project of Morningside Center for Teaching Social Responsibility. We welcome your comments. Please email them to: lmcclure@morningsidecenter.org.

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