Article

2004-11-30 Iraq-Jordan

BUSH PREPARES FOR TROOP PULLOUT BY 2006

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Posted by Fred 2004-11-30 10:48:35 PM|| || Front Page|| [1 views since 2007-05-07] Top

#1 I dont think the US can afford to wait that long. It will be sooner.

Posted by Goher 2004-11-30 1:09:04 AM|| 2004-11-30 1:09:04 AM|| Front Page Top

#2 East, West and South are good directions.

Posted by Conanista 2004-11-30 2:27:07 AM|| 2004-11-30 2:27:07 AM|| Front Page Top

#3 North is good too. Turkey should be carved up.

Free the Kurds from Turkish oppression. Make Turkey pay for the Armenian genocide. And reward them for backstabbing the Northern front during the liberation of Iraq.

Posted by Kalle (kafir forever) 2004-11-30 4:09:44 AM|| [http://radio.weblogs.com/0103811/categories/currentEvents/] 2004-11-30 4:09:44 AM|| Front Page Top

#4 who have concluded that the U.S. military presence in Iraq has become counterproductive.

I am confused. I thought the problem was that we need more troops there (draft, draft, draft!), to effect the forcible establishment of peace and tranquility in the still-restive Sunni triangle region. Are peace and tranquility no longer considered necessary?

Posted by trailing wife 2004-11-30 6:53:24 AM|| 2004-11-30 6:53:24 AM|| Front Page Top

#5 Even if the insurgency is quelled by then, Iraq could not defend itself against Iran by then. This would therefore appear to be a strategy of cut and run.

Posted by military industrial complex 2004-11-30 7:51:20 AM|| 2004-11-30 7:51:20 AM|| Front Page Top

#6 A good, albeit not so secretive, timeframe: (1) gives the Iraqis some sense of urgency to get their house in order, and (2) conforms nicely to the other "gathering threats."

As always, it does (or should) include one huge caveat: it depends on the facts on the ground.

Posted by Capt America 2004-11-30 8:08:00 AM|| 2004-11-30 8:08:00 AM|| Front Page Top

#7 Airbase rights remain......

Posted by Frank G 2004-11-30 8:40:45 AM|| 2004-11-30 8:40:45 AM|| Front Page Top

#8 The "pullout" will most likely be a changeover to the new Iraq Command structure. That is, the US forces will "retreat" to kaserns like it did in Germany, no longer needing to participate in Iraqi internal affairs. Troop draw-downs will probably be to new bases in eastern Europe, with orderly personnel rotations back to the US--leaving equipment in place. Basically, Iraq becomes the new Germany model.

Posted by Anonymoose 2004-11-30 9:14:17 AM|| 2004-11-30 9:14:17 AM|| Front Page Top

#9 Those close to the administration...
I suppose that means the WaPo and NYT reporters sitting in the press room at the White House.

Posted by Don 2004-11-30 9:15:23 AM|| 2004-11-30 9:15:23 AM|| Front Page Top

#10 Those close to the administration = future resignees from the CIA

Posted by Frank G 2004-11-30 9:18:36 AM|| 2004-11-30 9:18:36 AM|| Front Page Top

#11 The "insurgency" will continue for a decade or more, at least as a spontaneous, semi-organized, ragtag grouping of head-choppers and carbombers. Anyone can become a martyr, and there are no shortage of wild-eyed and shtoopid sunnis, sadrites and other haters who can be persuaded to propel themselves to heaven.

If Baghdad and the sunni triangle are to avoid So Africa's fate, then the Iraqi government must step up. It's not our task to eliminate this sort of quasi-organized violence any more than it was the west's task to end all violence in South Africa post-apartheid. Johannesburg today is only marginally safer than Baghdad. However we can and should provide training plus perhaps aerial recon and other sorts of assistance to the Iraqis, esp along Iraq's borders.

To the military pros here: what sort of forward deployment would make sense? I'd guess the main goal should probably be to cut the ratline running from Syria through Fallujah to Mosul. Kurds can help greatly; perhaps we could have a permanent base in Kurdistan?

Posted by lex 2004-11-30 11:07:25 AM|| 2004-11-30 11:07:25 AM|| Front Page Top

#12 It's not our task to eliminate this sort of quasi-organized violence any more than it was the west's task to end all violence in South Africa post-apartheid.

This isn't about obligations, this is about *goals*. Is it still a US goal to make Iraq into a model democratic state in the Middle-east, one that may lead to a so-called "democratic domino" across the region?

Or has that goal been abandoned as hopelessly utopian under the given circumstances?

Posted by Aris Katsaris 2004-11-30 12:57:58 PM|| 2004-11-30 12:57:58 PM|| Front Page Top

#13 Aris, tell me true: do you consider post-apartheid South Africa to be a success? If yes, then how so?

Posted by lex 2004-11-30 12:59:11 PM|| 2004-11-30 12:59:11 PM|| Front Page Top

#14 Aris, tell me true: do you consider post-apartheid South Africa to be a success?

I consider it a slightly bigger success than post-Saddam Iraq. Which means "not much".

If yes, then how so?

Black people have their freedom.

Posted by Aris Katsaris 2004-11-30 3:16:44 PM|| 2004-11-30 3:16:44 PM|| Front Page Top

#15 Freedom to be raped (1/3 of all SA women, much higher for black SAfrican women)?
To be unemployed (50% of the population)?
To have AIDS (20% of the population)?

Posted by lex 2004-11-30 3:23:36 PM|| 2004-11-30 3:23:36 PM|| Front Page Top

#16 I would gladly bet you any sum you wish, Aris, that Iraq in 10 years' time will be far safer, freer, more prosperous and with an unemployment rate that is a fraction of South Africa's current rate, than South Africa today.

Utterly no need for our troops to remain in alrge numbers there beyond another year or two.

Posted by lex 2004-11-30 3:25:40 PM|| 2004-11-30 3:25:40 PM|| Front Page Top

#17 It's not our task to eliminate this sort of quasi-organized violence any more than it was the west's task to end all violence in South Africa post-apartheid...However we can and should provide training plus perhaps aerial recon and other sorts of assistance to the Iraqis, esp along Iraq's borders.

Well it certainly isn't in perpetuity. It will end up in the Iraqis hands, 2005 or the following year. It can turn out no other way.

We have been doing our very best to help out the region and the Iraqis-digging deep into our pockets (where is the rest of the "altruistic" world?), risking our reputation, and shedding blood, limbs, and lives (where is most of the rest of the "caring" world?), but if the Iraqis don't recognize and seize this chance, THEY will have abandoned THEMSELVES to a bleak future. What's it to be, Iraq? A permanent diagnosis of Middle Eastern scapegoat-o-phrenia or something more hopeful and promising?

You can't make someone grateful or savvy, nor can you make a people see it's their best chance, but you can try. After that, it's up to them.

HOW HOW HOW MUCH DIFFERENT Iraq could have turned out had our allies worked with us in good faith and support.

Posted by Jules 187 2004-11-30 3:43:13 PM|| 2004-11-30 3:43:13 PM|| Front Page Top

#18 Let's try a counterfactual thought experiment.

Suppose John Kerry had won the election and less than a month later started leaking that he would unilaterally have all troops out of Iraq by the next general election. What would the Rantburg reaction have been?

This haste to leave is unseemly. We have occupied German for nigh onto 60 years. One tenth that does not seem unreasonable for Iraq. AM's suggestion that forward basing in Eastern Europe is in any way comparable to what we did in Germany is ludicrous. We should stay in Iraq as long as the Iraqi people and their government wish us to and not a moment longer.

Just so I don't appear to be agreeing with Aris again, this is about obligations. Part of why we went there was to set the Middle East on the path to leave the 12th century for the 21st. To walk out prematurely would be to fail in our obligation to those who have joined us and those who died trying. It would be as black an episode as the betrayal of the Vietnamese in 1975. We owe it to the Iraqis, the Israqelis, the Iranians and others in the Middle East waiting for freedom, and most of all to our children to finish this job properly.

Posted by Mrs. Davis 2004-11-30 4:13:34 PM|| 2004-11-30 4:13:34 PM|| Front Page Top

#19 It wasn't 60 years of violence against American soldiers, however, or a 60-year endurance of a people who side with a rabid religious cause. I am not saying abandon them, Mrs. D. But thinking 1) that American people will put up with long-term beheadings and suicide bombings on OUR fighters while Iraqis seem to be sitting on the fence silent in large numbers, or 2) that Americans would support the notion that we will do other's heavy work for them as far as the eye can see, out of guilt or obligation, while they are free of responsibility, would be a misreading both of the American people's will and their beliefs of personal responsibility in freedom. It is what some would like to see: America suffer interminably for imagined or real slights.

Posted by Jules 187 2004-11-30 4:28:40 PM|| 2004-11-30 4:28:40 PM|| Front Page Top

#20 And what did the Germans do during the Cold War aside from sit on the fence while we went through Korea, Viet Nam etc.? Americans will do what is in their best interest and that is to establish a working democracy in Iraq, not to cut and run after 3 years.

Posted by Mrs. Davis 2004-11-30 4:53:41 PM|| 2004-11-30 4:53:41 PM|| Front Page Top

#21 You may be right. Time will tell. I am making the point not so much to promote a policy stance, but as a consideration of probabilities.

Posted by Jules 187 2004-11-30 5:05:45 PM|| 2004-11-30 5:05:45 PM|| Front Page Top

#22 Mrs D, I take yourpoint about our obligation to the Iraqis but I don't think it requires 150,000 troops staying >3 years for Iraq to establish a working democracy. Our enormous contingent in Germany was not there to establish democracy so much as to prevent the Soviets from pouring into the Fulda Gap.

Likewise, we should have as many troops as are necessary to suppress major threats to the integrity of the Iraqi state, namely Zarqawi and other foreign jihadists primarily and Saddamite deadenders secondarily.

Any other sources of violence, such as sadrite kids and other thugs, must necessarily be dealt with by the Iraqi security forces themselves. A government that cannot suppress unorganized mobs is not a serious government at all. Allawi knows this and most Iraqis do as well. We should stay long enough and in such numbers and deployments as are needed to suppress organized, major threats and allow the Iraqi government enough time to get on its feet. Anything more will hurt Iraqi democracy and feed arab paranoia about US domination or Iraq for purposes of controlling Iraq's oil.

Posted by lex 2004-11-30 5:06:20 PM|| 2004-11-30 5:06:20 PM|| Front Page Top

#23 Our enormous contingent in Germany was not there to establish democracy so much as to prevent the Soviets from pouring into the Fulda Gap.

Then why is it still there 15 years after the Soviet Union disappeared?

I agree with your verbal definition of how long we should stay. But it will take a lot more than 3 years to suppress organized, major threats and allow the Iraqi government to get on its feet. Especially when the major threat to the Iraqi government is the Iranian government.

Why do we still have troops in Japan? Korea?

As to the paranoia that we're there for the oil, the CPA made a big mistake not setting up a mechanism to pay the Iraqi oil royalties to the Iraqi people without interference from the government. That would have made the Iraqi's the envy of the Middle East and made the government tax the people to get funds to operate. As it is now, the Iraqi government will be swimming in oil revenue and will look like Mexico at best.

Posted by Mrs. Davis 2004-11-30 6:06:52 PM|| 2004-11-30 6:06:52 PM|| Front Page Top

#24 Troops should have been drawn down from Germany long ago. Probably were not because of lack of alternative European bases near the mideast theater. now we have them (Bulgaria, Romania), and now the drawdown's occurring.

As to the timetable, I don't know how many years are necessary-- not sure anyone does-- but I do know that our job is to smash the biggest obstacles to Iraqi democracy, not to do police work. Fine line between the two? Maybe, but the distinction's crucial. If we do police work, then we're propping up a puppet regime. I don't want to be in that business.

As to the Iranian threat, I should think we could counter it from Afghan and perhaps with a long-term depoyment in friendly Kurdistan. I think that's totally reasonable and should not incite conspiracy fears among the more lucid, rational muslims. But I can't imagine it requires more than 30,000 troops max.

Agree totally that it was stupid not to go the oil revenue-sharing route. But that can still change.

Posted by lex 2004-11-30 6:15:31 PM|| 2004-11-30 6:15:31 PM|| Front Page Top

#25 Agree about the policing, but it's a fine line when you've got the chimpanzee (sub-guerilla) warfare that's going to be going on there for at least a couple of years. It loks like this was part of Saddams plan and that's why executing him is part of bringing it to an end. We should establish an unofficial policy of never taking the head of state of any nation we go to war with alive. At least in the ME.

Posted by Mrs. Davis 2004-11-30 6:41:33 PM|| 2004-11-30 6:41:33 PM|| Front Page Top

#26 Dubya, CENTCOM, and America/Allies aren't going anywhere until a pro-Western/US democratic government is firmly established and terror destroyed. If they go anywhere it'll be to IRAN, SYRIA, NORTH KOREA-TAIWAN, etc. The Failed Left wants America to wage war and be warred against - no matter the rhetoric, the Clintons and Left will not want America to leave precisely because there are still many rogue states out there which they want Dubya and America to handle at Bush. GOP, and American expense which will be usurped later.

Posted by JosephMendiola 2004-11-30 8:14:33 PM|| [http://n/a] 2004-11-30 8:14:33 PM|| Front Page Top

#27 I don't buy this story. Especially this:

The Bush administration has been " quietly urged to consider a withdrawal of the more than 140,000 troops as a priority for the second Bush term. These advocates have included Defense Department officials and consultants who supported the war to topple the Saddam Hussein regime in 2003, but who have concluded that the U.S. military presence in Iraq has become counterproductive."

So there are DoD "officials" and "consultants" who think we should leave? Who are "urging" Bush to pull everyone out? Wow! What a scoop! How about this one: there are officials and consultants who are urging Bush not to leave prematurely because of the message that would send to the terrorists. In a government of our size every option is being considered and "urged,"
it's normal business...but I forgot: no one ever, ever dares disagree with Bushitler so this MUST be a big story...

Bush is not going to abandon the goal of bringing Democracy to Iraq and ultimately to the Middle East and one election isn't going to do that. Democracy is the absolute key to damping down terrorism and it's a cornerstone of his policies. He'll pull SOME of our people out when the situation warrants. There is no timeline.

Posted by RMcLeod 2004-11-30 10:17:20 PM|| 2004-11-30 10:17:20 PM|| Front Page Top

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