HOW HE SEES IT Taking another bad turn in Iraq

By JOHN HALL
MEDIA GENERAL NEWS SERVICE
The approaching June 30 deadline for handing over power to an interim authority in Iraq is looking more and more like a shadow dance.
The gruesome deaths of four American contract employees in the Sunni Triangle of Iraq last week and the mutilation of their bodies by an angry mob were yet another nightmare for U.S. policy-makers. There is no exit ahead -- or even a wide place in the road -- for civilians and troops, who are entering a second year more entangled in Iraq's business than ever.
There is an exit for administrator L. Paul Bremer III and his staff, who presumably will turn over their vast occupation resources to a new American super-ambassador yet to be named. But that is starting to look like more of a bureaucratic shuffle than a real shift in responsibility. And the elections that are supposed to follow at the end of the year seem far-fetched in such a murderous place.
The Fallujah murders, and dozens of other daily acts of violence, have raised questions whether there is any prospect of normality in store for that vital region. Terrorists from outside may be at work. But it is also clear that the Baathist party and Republican Guard, stripped of jobs and power since the fall of Saddam Hussein, continue to fester.
Outsourcing
The use of civilian contract workers for dangerous assignments such as those being carried out by last week's four victims in Fallujah again has raised questions about how much of this war is being outsourced. The four all were working for Blackwater Security Consulting of Moyock, N.C., which has a large coastal reservation for both private and military commando training. Three of the victims were former Navy Seals and one was a former Army Ranger, and all were working as private contractors for Bremer's operation.
Who sent these men, who were said to be protecting food convoys, patrolling alone without armored vehicles into one of the most violent areas of the city?
Their operations, and those of thousands of other private American contractors in the area, have apparently not been coordinated very well, if at all, with U.S. military forces in the area. Swashbuckling and freelancing have been part of the scene from the beginning. When U.S. forces occupied Baghdad, they reportedly found that a large American contractor already had taken up residence in one of Saddam Hussein's prime palaces.
Remember Mogadishu
Inevitably, although they were dissimilar, comparisons were being drawn between last week's Fallujah murders to Mogadishu more than a decade ago. In the Blackhawk Down tragedy on Oct. 3, 1993, rebel militias in Somalia shot down two helicopters in a firefight that killed 18 Americans. The body of one was dragged through the streets.
In his best-selling book, "Against All Enemies," White House terrorism adviser Richard Clarke told of a private encounter with President Clinton after he had given the order to send in more tanks and aircraft:
"As the meeting broke up, Clinton indicated for [national security adviser Tony] Lake and me to follow him through the side door into the outer area of the Oval Office. 'I want us running this, not the State Department or the Pentagon:' He looked at me. 'No more U.S. troops get killed, none. Do what you have to do, whatever you have to do.'"
In Clarke's view, the perception that Clinton had cut and run under pressure from the U.S. Congress was incorrect, but he does concede that was probably how Osama bin Laden and Al-Qaida saw it. And he seems to think large-scale retaliation for Blackhawk Down should have been ordered. Clarke's view has made an impression on some influential members of the 9/11 commission, who believe the failure of deterrence contributed to the attack on America.
In the case of Bush, the impression being made with the Fallujah attacks is just the opposite. It is his war. He won't quit. And a long, bloody insurgency in Iraq shows no sign of ending.
XHall is the senior Washington correspondent of Media General News Service. Distributed by Scripps Howard News Service.