The US has to introduce a common-sense strategy to stop the bloodshed.

While violence related to terrorism and counter-terrorism claims on an average 100 lives a day in Iraq, the US President, George W. Bush, appears to be not in a hurry to finalise a change in policy in the country that he invaded some 45 months ago.

Bush is trying to buy more time in order to swallow what he had denied for more than three years. He is now in a listening mood before he starts his celebration mood at the end of the year.

Finally he promised he would have some time to think about a new strategy. The US administration is playing for time even though wasting additional time means sacrificing more human lives including 140,000 soldiers trapped in Iraq.

The 84-page The Iraq Study Group Report presented by a bipartisan Baker-Hamilton committee and issued on December 6 has come up with findings and recommendations that were not easy for the president to digest, which, in turn, cornered him in an unpleasant situation.

In his search for a way out, the president asked other committees in the State Department, the Pentagon and the White House to counteract the ISG report to adopt what he called well researched changes in the US policy.

Can Iraq wait any more for Bush to think, think and think of how to change his strategy in Iraq?

Let?s forget about the past ? even if the past dates back to just few months ago, when Bush described his position in Iraq as winning on terrorism although it was a failure on all fronts.

Let us be pragmatic and see what the US can do now and not after two weeks in order to stop the bloodshed in this country and prevent chaos from spreading in the whole region.

Let?s find out what the US needs to do in order to rescue its own troops first and save lives of more innocent Iraqis dying every day there for no reason. Not forgetting that rescuing the US soldiers came first in this context based on the American priorities, not on moral and noble values, of course.

The 79-point recommendation, presented by the 10-member Baker-Hamilton committee which took them 266 days to conclude, is definitely a valuable piece of work, but there is no doubt that it is not worth the time it consumed.

While the committee was conducting its routine fact collection work, the situation in Iraq has been getting worse. In fact 653 allied soldiers ? 612 Americans, 23 Britons and 18 from other countries ? were killed in action in the country.

Furthermore, while the committee was busy choosing 11,500 words of recommendation, 16,230 Iraqis (civilians and security forces) were killed according to a most conservative estimate in the country.

Daily killings

To sum up the above, 17,000 people were killed in Iraq while Baker, Hamilton and their eight colleagues were busy travelling around, conducting meetings with diplomats, strategists and thinkers.

Using simple maths, 64 lives were lost on a daily basis since the Congress sensed that there was something wrong in Iraq that needs to be discussed by a group of experts to find a solution.

In addition to the above, and ever since the ISG published its report two weeks ago, an additional 1,024 people died in Iraq. What a waste. But, this is not the end.

Up till today, there is no action by the US administration regarding Iraq as if all the human losses in the country were not enough for Bush to cancel other commitments in order to sit with his security advisers to rescue the situation there.

In other words, Bush is telling those who have concerns about the situation in Iraq and about the fate of their sons and beloved ones in the troubled country that they have to wait till the end of the year before he could work to change his strategies and policies there.

Using basic mathematics, he is saying an additional 770 people would have to die in Iraq (based on the current rate of casualties) before he could find time to take painful decisions that may reverse his old policies.

Some of those people would die during the Christmas holidays, others on New Year?s eve, while Bush and his security advisers are busy celebrating the end of the deadly year!

It will be hard to accept any delay in action especially for many Americans who will lose their beloved ones in the war during the no-action period, but it is harder to believe that Bush would be able to take the right decisions after this period.

The previous assumption is based on the fact that at the beginning of the new year, the president would have many reports about the situation in Iraq in addition to Baker-Hamilton and he would have many choices.

Reading and choosing will be a problem, while changing old beliefs by a man like Bush will be the toughest problem that faces a solution in Iraq.

Fortunately, the US president could drop reading all these reports and resort to basic logic. Bush should read the map of Iraq for just a day before he launched his war in March 2003 and try his sincere efforts to return to that day.

The question here is, will he work on a viable and logical plan to end the Iraq bloodshed before Christmas?

The answer is no, he wouldn?t because he?s in a holiday mood and is insensitive to the loss of innocent lives in Iraq.

                      <b>  by  Duraid AL BAIK</b>