Bush Dismisses the Idea of Partitioning Iraq
WASHINGTON — President Bush told Middle East experts at a private meeting this week that a three-way division of Iraq would only worsen sectarian violence and was not an option for solving the country's problems, the analysts said Tuesday.
Rejecting a policy alternative that has been gaining support in the U.S. and abroad, Bush told the experts that dividing Iraq would be "like pouring oil on fire," said Eric M. Davis of Rutgers University, one of the experts who met with the president Monday over Texas brisket and iced tea at the Pentagon.
The experts said in interviews that Bush signaled that he intended to make no policy changes in Iraq, despite warnings from military leaders and election-year arguments from Democrats that the war is a drain on resources and a distraction from the administration's campaign against terrorism.
Although only a minority has been in favor of dividing Iraq into Shiite, Sunni and Kurdish sections since the 2003 invasion, the unrelenting pace of sectarian killings and a stalled reconstruction effort have sparked rethinking among many U.S. officials, their allies and Iraqis.
Some Iraqi Shiite and Kurdish leaders recently expressed support for the idea. In the United States, so have Sen. Joseph R. Biden Jr. of Delaware, the senior Democrat on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee and a potential 2008 presidential candidate, and former State Department officials Peter Galbraith and Leslie H. Gelb.
Davis said that when he began enumerating the reasons it would be a mistake to divide Iraq, Bush interrupted. "He was going, 'Yes, yes,' while I was making that point," Davis said.
Reuel Marc Gerecht, a Mideast analyst at American Enterprise Institute, said Bush asserted that the partition idea was "not even a starter," and that he also made it clear that "as long as he's president, we're in Iraq."
Carole O'Leary, an American University research professor and Iraq expert, said Bush "was adamant that, despite any conspiracy theories out there in the Islamic world or anywhere else, the United States is not in there to break up the place."
White House Press Secretary Tony Snow elaborated later Tuesday.
"It may provide kind of a nice construct -- break it apart, and then it won't be a problem," Snow said. "Iraqis look upon themselves
Bush met with the experts during two days of sessions with Cabinet officials and others focusing on Iraq, terrorism and national security issues.
