REPORT: Stop Training Iraqi Security Forces And Redeploy U.S. Troops

[Hissyspit]

http://thinkprogress.org/2007/06/25/strategic-reset

REPORT: Stop Training Iraqi Security Forces And Redeploy U.S. Troops

A new Center for American Progress report titled Strategic Reset calls for the withdrawal of virtually all U.S. troops within one year, and for the United States to “phase out its training of Iraq’s national security forces and place strict limits on further arming and equipping Iraq’s forces.”

Training security forces has been one of the main tenets of President Bush’s Iraq strategy. Bush has repeatedly stated, “As the Iraqis stand up, we will stand down” and the United States has already invested $20 billion into training Iraq’s national army and police force. Other major Iraq strategies — including the Iraq Study Group and Congress’s war funding bill — also advocate continuing to fund Iraqi security forces.

But Strategic Reset charts a new course, arguing that this approach is actually contributing to the violence in Iraq:

First, the United States is arming up different sides in multiple civil wars that could turn even more vicious in the coming years. Second (and more important to America’s strategic interests) billions of dollars of U.S. military assistance is going to some of the closest allies of America’s greatest rival in the Middle East — Iran. The Shi’a-dominated Iraqi national army and security forces could quite quickly turn their weapons against American troops and allies in the region. ...

Training and skill-building are not crucial for Iraq’s security forces. In fact many of them have more training than hundreds of U.S. soldiers being deployed as part of this surge. Rather, the Iraqi forces’ problems are related to motivation and allegiance. In the past three years, the size of Iraq’s security forces and the levels of violence have both grown steadily, even as the U.S. troop presence remained constant.

Other highlights of Strategic Reset:

– Redeployment of U.S. troops: U.S. troops would be withdrawn from Iraq by the summer of 2007, at the latest. “U.S. troop levels in Iraq could decline to about 70,000 by January 2008, with a full redeployment completed by September 2008.” Troops would rotate to Kuwait, Turkey, Afghanistan, back to the United States, or to other “critical missions outside of Iraq.”

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[ProSense]

1. Set a one-year deadline and cut funding for military operations in Iraq after that deadline.

That is the Feingold plan supported by Senator Kerry and eight other Democrats. No troops inside Iraq.

Excellent from the Center for American Progress. One of the co-authors, Brian Katulis, was on an excellent Iraq panel with John Soltz and Congresswoman Barbara Lee at the TBA conference.

[TwilightGardener]

2. Sounds reasonable to me!

Especially the part about how the Iraqi security forces suffer from more of a "motivation and allegiance" problem than a technical/training problem--I believe this is true. How much training do these forces need to learn to fucking fire a rifle? A GI can get through basic in 3-4 months--these troops have had 4 years to get "trained"!

[NNN0LHI]

4. They don't call it "soldiering" for nothing n/t

[ProSense]

3. Kick!

This is getting very little attention!

[ProSense]

5. Kick! n/t