What will it take? The Phoenix asks when and under what circumstances will we be able to withdraw US troops from Iraq BY DAVID S. BERNSTEIN

WHEN CAN THE US get out of Iraq?

That question is easier to ask than answer. Answers depend on one’s preconceptions about the costs of the US presence, and the costs of leaving; about what is really happening in Iraq, and what is really possible in Washington, DC.

Take, for example, the costs of war. There is the $180 million or so spent. There are the 1636 American soldiers who have died as of Tuesday of this week, along with 180 Allied soldiers from other countries, 237 contractors (including 85 Americans), 2100 Iraqi police and Guardsmen, and more than 21,000 civilians. But some people see more obscure costs. A US congressman sees a growing tolerance of inhumanity. A physician sees life-altering battlefield wounds. A rabbi sees divisiveness spreading throughout society. An economist sees damage to Iraq’s water systems.

The Phoenix set out to find a variety of these viewpoints in hopes that they might, like snapshots taken from different angles, add up to a more complete picture. Here is what we found.

Congressman Barney Frank

We’ll be there as long as George Bush remains president, I’m afraid, because it’s not going very well, and they have gotten themselves entangled in a mess that they don’t know how to get out of.

We have reached the point where we are doing ourselves more harm than good over there. American soldiers are targets, and the American presence gives Iraqis something to fight for: getting us out. As long as we are there, the bombings and attacks will continue. Our presence makes it less likely that the violence will stop. So I think that as long as we are there, the conditions won’t change to allow us to leave without the whole place really blowing up.

The costs will continue — the billions of dollars that we are spending on Iraq that we could be spending on other things. And the lives of the soldiers, and the injuries to the soldiers.

Also, when you look at the treatment of prisoners, and everything else we are learning about, we see that there is a cost that comes from acceptance of tactics that we shouldn’t be accepting. We will continue to become more tolerant of behaviors that we as a society should never be willing to tolerate.

And, the war prevents us from accomplishing things in that region that we could otherwise accomplish — which is contrary to what they said going in. We now have less ability to do those things. And the cost in dollars is drastically greater than they said it would be.

This administration can do very little now to change the course in Iraq, because it has so little credibility. A new president could say, "Whatever people think about what has happened, let’s get a multinational force in there to do the job of peacekeeping, and get out the American forces that are causing more violence than they are preventing."

It would be unlikely to move this administration in that direction, because they are so stubborn. But the Congress could be moved. I think frankly the next chance you get will depend on the elections of 2006. If the Republicans keep hold of their strong majority in Congress, then we’ll have two more years of the war. If the Democrats do well in 2006, it could cause the Republicans to think, "Maybe we don’t want this burden around our neck in 2008."

Max Boot, senior fellow, Council on Foreign Relations

Are we going to get to a point where there are no more American troops in Iraq? I would be surprised if we get to that point even a decade from now. But would we have fewer than 140,000 troops there? I hope so. I hope that will happen within the next year or so. I think that’s doable.

In order for that to happen, the capacity of the Iraqi security forces has to continue to improve. If you want to be cynical, you can say that they have only one way to go, which is up, given how poorly they started off. There is evidence that it’s starting to develop. Some Iraqi units have proven to be, to use the technical term, kick-ass forces. The special police commandos, who have taken the initiative and gone after some of the worst bad guys on their own, have proven to be very efficient forces. Iraqi troops in general are taking over more responsibility for their country. Their capacity is clearly growing. There are still major problems, especially in the Sunni areas, where it is hard to recruit reliable personnel. Clearly we have a ways to go, as we can see from the wave of suicide bombings and other acts of terrorism that have been sweeping Iraq in the last month or so.

I would expect to see progress on the political front, with the Iraqis taking rapid steps in terms of democratic self-government. But that doesn’t automatically translate into improvements in the security situation. I think the long-term future of Iraq — not long term, but 10 years out — is going to be somewhat like Colombia, Sri Lanka, or Israel, which are democracies and which continue to function as democracies, but nevertheless experience very high levels of political violence.

I hope that the Iraqi government will continue to increase its legitimacy and popular support, which will help to dry up some of the support in the Sunni areas for the terrorists. But I have to be realistic and say that there is just a hard core there that cannot be placated. Some of these jihadists, including foreigners, and some of these hard-core Baathists, who are not fighting to be included in the political picture in Iraq, cannot be appeased or placated. They have to be hunted down and captured or killed, and that’s going to be very, very difficult. A small number of people can create a lot of havoc in a country of 25 million people. Whether it’s the US military or the Iraqi armed military, I don’t think either one is going to be able to stamp out all of the terrorism any time in the foreseeable future.

The US success in holding elections in Afghanistan and Iraq is having a huge ripple effect. All across the region, every regime feels compelled to make some move in the direction of political reform, whether it’s [President Hosni] Mubarak in Egypt promising to hold multi-candidate elections, or the Kuwaiti government giving political rights to women. If Iraq continues to move forward — if as expected they write a constitution this year, if they hold a further referendum on that constitution, if they hold another election to elect a government — if they do all those things, the example they set will be a very powerful one. It will be broadcast throughout the region on Al Jazeera and Al Arabiya, and I think it will continue to influence the region in a very positive direction.

Conversely, if we were to pull out prematurely, I think it would be a nightmare. It could lead to the collapse of this democratic government, it could lead to civil war engulfing Iraq, it could lead to intervention by outside states, and it would send this message that democracy doesn’t work in the Middle East. It would send the message that the US can be brought to its knees by a handful of suicide bombers.