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Iraq
Four-Star General May Run Iraq Transition
2004-01-07
Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld said Tuesday he is considering appointing a U.S. four-star general to oversee the security aspects of Iraq’s transition to self-rule. He said no decisions have been made but "it may very well be" that the command structure will be reorganized as the United States approaches the July 1 target date for restoring Iraqi sovereignty. Now, the top military officer for the Iraq mission is Gen. John Abizaid, whose Florida-base Central Command has responsibility for American military operations in Iraq, as well as Afghanistan, other parts of the Persian Gulf and Central Asia, and the Horn of Africa.
Lot’s of eggs in that basket.
Within the new structure that is under discussion at the Pentagon, another four-star general would be given overall military responsibility for Iraq, leaving Lt. Gen. Ricardo Sanchez, who is currently the most senior commander on the ground in Iraq, to run day-to-day combat operations. That also would relieve some strain on Abizaid, whose has broader responsibilities.
Peeling off Iraq, setting it up as a stand-alone command.
The proposal was first reported Tuesday by the Washington Times. Rumsfeld said this is one of two dozen or more issues under consideration as part of the transition toward a restoration of sovereignty in Iraq.
What jumped out at me, and the press missed, was that the new four-star would be Commander, US Forces-Iraq. Just like US Forces-Korea, US Forces-Japan, US Forces-Europe, etc. Anyone else think we’re planning to leave soon? Me neither, they’re setting up the force structure for the bases the new Iraqi government will "lease" us after they take charge.
Posted by:Steve

#3  We're engaged in a very extensive interagency process at the present time and have been for a period of several months, at least, I think. I can remember talking to Secretary Powell about beginning the process of transferring over responsibility to an ambassador at that point where the Coalition Provisional Authority head, Jerry Bremer, departs, and the responsibilities go into an embassy of some kind, probably a beefed-up embassy, to be sure, and how we do that.


NOOOOO! NOT THE STATE DEPARTMENT!!!!
Posted by: Ptah   2004-1-7 2:31:53 PM  

#2  Well, considering we're still in Germany, Japan and Korea after 50++ years, I really don't know how people would think we're leaving.
Posted by: Anonymous2U   2004-1-7 1:12:23 PM  

#1  The actual transcript makes this a lot more of an aside than a statment of intent.
General Myers and I have talked about it, but not in a fully structured way yet. He is going to coming back to me at some point and discussing that. And we've been discussing a whole host of things.

If you think of where we are, we have a situation where we have a coalition of forces in the country. We have a combatant commander in General Abizaid that has a large region with Afghanistan, and the Horn of Africa, and a whole host of things he has to think through. And we have a Coalition Provisional Authority that is the government of the country, for all practical purposes, working with the ministries and the Governing Council in governing Iraq.

We're engaged in a very extensive interagency process at the present time and have been for a period of several months, at least, I think. I can remember talking to Secretary Powell about beginning the process of transferring over responsibility to an ambassador at that point where the Coalition Provisional Authority head, Jerry Bremer, departs, and the responsibilities go into an embassy of some kind, probably a beefed-up embassy, to be sure, and how we do that.

So we've been working on that. We've got dozens -- not dozens, but a couple handfuls of interagency committees that are thinking through the governance pieces and how that works and the essential service piece.

One of the pieces is the security situation. And it may very well be that we will want to make an adjustment and have some division of responsibility, as between CENTCOM, the relationship with the embassy, military -- office of military cooperation type task, as well as somebody that has the responsibility for the tactical, low- intensity warfighting that's taking place. It's not been decided.
Posted by: Chuck Simmins   2004-1-7 11:20:30 AM  

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