A Shift on Iraq: The Generals Plan a Slow Exit

[ECH1969]

DOHA, Qatar -- Posted on a bulletin board at Centcom headquarters here is a 1918 admonition from T.E. Lawrence explaining what he learned in training Arab soldiers: "It is better to let them do it themselves imperfectly than to do it yourself perfectly. It is their country, their way, and our time is short."

That quote sums up an important shift in U.S. military strategy on Iraq that has been emerging over the past year. The commanders who are running the war don't talk about transforming Iraq into an American-style democracy or of imposing U.S. values. They understand that Iraqis dislike American occupation, and for that reason they want fewer American troops in Iraq, not more. Most of all, they don't want the current struggle against Iraqi insurgents, who are nasty but militarily insignificant, to undermine U.S. efforts against the larger threat posed by al Qaeda terrorists, who would kill hundreds of thousands of Americans if they could.

I had a rare opportunity to hear a detailed explanation of U.S. military strategy this weekend when the Centcom chief, Gen. John Abizaid, gathered his top generals here for what he called a "commanders' huddle." They described a military approach that's different, at least in tone, from what the public perceives. For the commanders, Iraq isn't an endless tunnel. They are planning to reduce U.S. troop levels over the next year to a force that will focus on training and advising the Iraqi military. They don't want permanent U.S. bases in Iraq. Indeed, they believe such a high-visibility American presence will only make it harder to stabilize the country.

"The longer we carry the brunt of the counterinsurgency fight, the longer we will carry the brunt," says Gen. George W. Casey Jr., who commands U.S. troops in Iraq. "The sooner we can shift the better." Casey explains: "A smaller U.S. footprint, that is allowed to decline gradually as Iraqi forces get stronger, actually helps us."

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/09/25/AR2005092501298_pf.html
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No Bases? Rummy isn't going to go for that.

[NNN0LHI]

1. Here that sound?

That is the sound of thousands of American war profiteers runing for the exits.

Don

[saigon68]

5. It was called Vietnamization

It didn't work

[Nickster]

8. That's what I thought when I read this. So what do you think, along the

Iraq/Vietnam parallel timeline, are we somewhere around 1972ish?

[saigon68]

9. 1969

No real protests--- like cars burning in the streets etc. yet


NO DRAFT EITHER.

[DemocratSinceBirth]

10. The Consequences Of Losing Iraq Are Infinitely Worse

He really created the mother of all quagmires...



Who will fill in the vacuum caused by our departure?


And why did we invest thousands of lives and hundreds of billions of dollars if we are to leave Iraq in worse shape than we found it?


As an opponent of Bushco I find satisfaction that our criticisms have been vindicated but as someone who loves this country I am very, very sad....

[Nickster]

12. Didn't they use the same arguments about Vietnam? Seems like Vietnam

did just fine after our departure. We aren't going to win with the current management, so do we keep throwing more lives and money down the drain hoping things will change?

I'm sorry for the Iraqi people, but I sincerely don't care enough about them to worry about what they'll do with their country if we cut the cord. Freedom ain't cheap, they'll will have to stand up and fight for what they believe in, if they want democracy, they can stand up and fight and die for it like our forefathers did and we can supply them with money, weapons, etc. I simply don't think our loss of blood and treasure is worth it.

[DemocratSinceBirth]

13. Well

I don't think the Vietnamese who were sent to reeducation camps or forcefully relocated from the city to the countryside thought they did "just fine"....


In any case, Viet Nam was not located in an area of the world that supplies almost half the world's oil...

[Nickster]

16. Oh I agree, the people of South Vietnam and the ARVN surely suffered

but overall, they seem to be doing just fine as a country. What are they doing now, something like 6 billion a year in trade with the US?

I think not having major oil resources was a part of the reason we were able to give up on it(Vietnam) a little bit easier, if you can call losing 55k+ American troops easy. There were oil projects going on in the South China Sea though, just no where near the extent of what could be possible in Iraq.

[Nickster]

11. Well, I was thinking more along the military situation.

I really don't think we are going to see any protests along the scale of the 60s and we certainly aren't going to see a draft either. Under normal circumstances, we'd already have a draft, but there is no way Dubya is going to call for a draft. He's just going to beat the snot out of our existing troops. "4,5,6 tours....too bad for you, you volunteered...."

[wtmusic]

2. No direct quote on the bases

Like to pin them down on that one.

[nadinbrzezinski]

3. oh boy so Rove won over rummy?

yes the politicos versus the war mongers, those two factions exist and this is teh way it was described to me

[Lexingtonian]

4. Gee. I've heard that one before....

The letters ARVN just light up for me.

[DemocratSinceBirth]

7. Yep

The "Americans will stand down as the Iraqis stand up" is Arabic for Vietnamization...

Wes Clark had it right... "This is the biggest strategic blunder in American history."

[acmavm]

6. Okay, if you had to put money on someone, who would it be? The

bush** administration and those whacky neos, or the generals?

Personally, I think that the war protests, Cindy Sheehan, and republican corruption will be a huge help to the generals in getting the troops out of there. But just think, if we could ALL work against bush** and his thugs, we might be out soon.

I'm wondering if Clark knows more about this than he's saying.

[Tierra_y_Libertad]

15. My money's on the Iraqis throwing us out.

Which they are doing with some skill.

[Tierra_y_Libertad]

14. Turning loose of the Tarbaby is going to prove tricky for Bush.

If he does anything that the "partriots" decipher as "cutting and running" they'll turn on him like hungry piranhas.

If he "stays the course" the quagmire will only get deeper.

So, now he and his bungling, inept, generals are shooting for a "Peace with Honor" strategy that they pray will get us out before the whole region blows up.

Of course the capitalists will be filling their bank acounts no matter what he does.

[Rose Siding]

17. This is big

snip>
...."I think we'd be foolish to try to build this into an American democracy," says one general. "It's going to take a very different form and character." The military commanders have concluded that because Iraqis have such strong cultural antibodies to the American presence, the World War II model of occupation isn't relevant. They've sharply lowered expectations for what America can accomplish.

What Abizaid and his commanders seem to fear most is that eroding political support for the war in the United States will undermine their strategy for a gradual transition to Iraqi control....