Thread: Obama will maintain a residual force (30,000 - 55,000 troops) in Iraq

Campaign Promises on Ending the War in Iraq Now Muted

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/12/04/us...zsjETJomulsqEA

WASHINGTON — On the campaign trail, Senator Barack Obama offered a pledge that electrified and motivated his liberal base, vowing to “end the war” in Iraq.

But as he moves closer to the White House, President-elect Obama is making clearer than ever that tens of thousands of American troops will be left behind in Iraq, even if he can make good on his campaign promise to pull all combat forces out within 16 months.

“I said that I would remove our combat troops from Iraq in 16 months, with the understanding that it might be necessary — likely to be necessary — to maintain a residual force to provide potential training, logistical support, to protect our civilians in Iraq,” Mr. Obama said this week as he introduced his national security team.

Publicly at least, Mr. Obama has not set a firm number for that “residual force,” a phrase certain to become central to the debate on the way ahead in Iraq, though one of his national security advisers, Richard Danzig, said during the campaign that it could amount to 30,000 to 55,000 troops. Nor has Mr. Obama laid out any timetable beyond 16 months for troop drawdowns, or suggested when he believes a time might come for a declaration that the war is over.

That status-of-forces agreement remains subject to change, by mutual agreement, and Army planners acknowledge privately that they are examining projections that could see the number of Americans hovering between 30,000 and 50,000 — and some say as high as 70,000 — for a substantial time even beyond 2011.

As American combat forces decline in numbers and more provinces are turned over to Iraqi control, these military planners say, Iraqi security forces will remain reliant on significant numbers of Americans for training, supplies, logistics, intelligence and transportation for a long time to come.

There always was a tension, if not a bit of a contradiction, in the two parts of Mr. Obama’s campaign platform to “end the war” by withdrawing all combat troops by May 2010. To be sure, Mr. Obama was careful to say that the drawdowns he was promising included only combat troops. But supporters who keyed on the language of ending the war might be forgiven if they thought that would mean bringing home all of the troops.

Pentagon planners say that it is possible that Mr. Obama’s goal could be accomplished at least in part by relabeling some units, so that those currently counted as combat troops could be “re-missioned,” their efforts redefined as training and support for the Iraqis.

In Iraq today, there are 15 brigades defined as combat forces in this debate, with one on its way home. But the overall number of troops on the ground is more than 50 brigade equivalents, for a total of 146,000 troops, including service and support personnel. Even now, after the departure of the five “surge” brigades that President Bush sent to Iraq in January 2006, the overall number of troops in Iraq remains higher than when Mr. Bush ordered the troop increase, owing to the number of support and service personnel remaining.

At his news conference in Chicago on Monday, Mr. Obama emphasized his willingness to listen to the advice from senior officers and that of his new national security team, which includes Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates, the first Pentagon chief in history to continue serving under a newly elected president; Adm. Mike Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff; and, as national security adviser, Gen. James L. Jones, the retired four-star Marine officer who served as NATO’s supreme commander.

Since the election, Mr. Obama has held unannounced consultations with both Mr. Gates and Admiral Mullen, described by Obama aides and Pentagon officials as having focused less on tactics and operations and more on broad, strategic views for American national security. On Wednesday, he made a telephone call to Nuri Kamal al-Maliki, Iraq’s prime minister, according to the Obama transition office.

To date, there has been no significant criticism from the antiwar left of the Democratic Party of the prospect that Mr. Obama will keep tens of thousands of troops in Iraq for at least several years to come.

At the Pentagon and the military headquarters in Iraq, the response to the statements this week from Mr. Obama and his national security team has been akin to the senior officer corps’ letting out its collective breath; the words sounded to them like the new president would take a measured approach on the question of troop levels.

“I believe that 16 months is the right time frame, but, as I’ve said consistently, I will listen to the recommendations of my commanders,” Mr. Obama said at that news conference on Monday. “And my No. 1 priority is making sure that our troops remain safe in this transition phase, and that the Iraqi people are well served by a government that is taking on increased responsibility for its own security.”

An apparent evolution of Mr. Obama’s thinking can be heard in contrast to comments he made in July, when he called a news conference to lay out his Iraq policy in unambiguous terms.

“I intend to end this war,” he said then. “My first day in office I will bring the Joint Chiefs of Staff in, and I will give them a new mission, and that is to end this war — responsibly, deliberately, but decisively.” And in a news conference that month in Amman, Jordan, Mr. Obama acknowledged that the American troop increase had bolstered Iraqi security but declared that he would not hesitate to overrule American commanders and redirect troops in Afghanistan.

Mr. Gates, speaking at the Pentagon on Tuesday, a day after he appeared with Mr. Obama to announce the new national security team, made clear that the direction of troop levels now had been decided, with the only decisions remaining on how fast and how low.

“And so the question is, How do we do this in a responsible way?” Mr. Gates said. “And nobody wants to put at risk the gains that have been achieved, with so much sacrifice, on the part of our soldiers and the Iraqis, at this point.”

Change you can count on. lol

The problem with this plan, well at least one problem is the basic fact that the Iraqi's will never tolerate 30~50 thousand troops as anything other than what it is, an occupying force. This guy is the establishment, and therefore nothing will ever change for the good, but I suspect that change for the worse will happen in a hard way.

Originally Posted by Notmyrealname

Change you can count on. lol

yes. 55k is quite a bit of a change from 155k. or 130k, or whatever the current number is.

so yes, good call.

Originally Posted by nickcuse

yes. 55k is quite a bit of a change from 155k. or 130k, or whatever the current number is.

so yes, good call.

tell that to the 55k, and their families.

Originally Posted by nickcuse

yes. 55k is quite a bit of a change from 155k. or 130k, or whatever the current number is.

so yes, good call.

Always the excuses. nickcuse's excuses...

Originally Posted by Notmyrealname

tell that to the 55k, and their families.

we have troops stationed all over the world, should we call all of their families first? or are the troops left behind in iraq somehow special?

Good, it will keep the worthless Muslims in check.

The US supported Saddam Hussein untill the invasion of Kuwait and then returned to support him when they authorised him to crush a Shi'ite rebellion which probobly would've overthrown him.

Administration reasoning was outlined by New York Times chief diplomatic correspondent Thomas Friedman, "While oposing the popular rebellion, Washington did hope that a military coup might remove Saddam, and then Washington would have the best of all worlds: an iron-fisted Iraqi junta without Saddam Hussein." Two years later he added, "It has always been American policy that the iron-fisted Mr. Hussein plays a useful role in holding Iraq together."

RAID ON BAGHDAD: An Assessment; The Missile' Message - New York Times

New York Times reporter Alan Cowell reported that Washington and its allies held the "strikingly unanimous view that whatever the sins of the iraqi leader he offered the West and the region a better hope for his country's stability than did those who have suffered his repression."

AFTER THE WAR; Kurds Assert Few Outside Iraq Wanted Them to Win - New York Times


Iraq's Nouri Maliki may gain power with U.S. security agreement

November 24, 2008

Reporting from Baghdad — An increasingly bold Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri Maliki has sanctioned politically charged arrests of prominent Sunnis, personally supervised military operations and moved to sideline rivals in recent months, actions that have evoked memories of the country's authoritarian past.

Maliki's defenders say the prime minister, who comes from a fiercely nationalist background, is trying to prevent the breakup of Iraq by establishing a strong central government. Detractors, including several Iraqi politicians and at least one Western official, suspect him of having ambitions to become "a benevolent Shiite Saddam."

"In some ways, we are seeing a return to traditional Iraqi political culture, where authority is centralized in the person of the leader in Baghdad," said a U.S. official, who asked not to be identified because of the subject's sensitivity. "That is the way Iraq has been run for decades prior to the American intervention in 2003.

"It's too early to say if a democratic state can emerge out of all this. It's messy and it's not going to get better any time soon, at least. It may become more violent."

In recent months, Maliki's office has created tribal councils that are seen as a direct challenge to Kurds in the north and Shiite competitors in the south. As well, the Iraqi army has arrested prominent Sunni members of such groups as the Sons of Iraq, an anti-insurgent paramilitary force that had been established and funded by the United States.

Such measures have many Iraqi and Western officials debating Maliki's true intentions.

Maliki has firmly rebutted the idea that a strong prime minister equals a return to Hussein's time.

This month, Maliki defended his government's assertive role. Otherwise, he said, "things would have slipped away."

He went on to warn that if too much power was ceded to regional governments, as envisioned by the Kurds and his party's competitor within the Shiite bloc, the Supreme Islamic Iraqi Council, the country could end up "with multiple central governments and dictatorships."

The prime minister urged instead that the constitution be revised to strengthen the national government.

In doing so, Maliki has moved audaciously to bolster his authority. In March, he dispatched soldiers to the southern city of Basra, where he directed them into neighborhoods to confront radical Shiite cleric Muqtada Sadr's Mahdi Army militia. He has approved controversial arrests of influential Sunni and Shiite figures. Once ignored by government ministers who had no loyalty to him, he now gives direct orders at ministries such as oil and electricity and has dismissed Trade Ministry officials he alleged were corrupt.

He has also fired employees in the Foreign Ministry, controlled by the Kurdish bloc, a move that his opponents have claimed is a power grab. And he has commanded his forces to challenge Kurdish forces in a disputed border area in Diyala province. That confrontation ended in a standoff.

Much will depend on whether he can use January's provincial elections to consolidate power in southern Iraq. If he manages to expand his reach, it will be a major boost for him when the country holds its next national elections, scheduled for December 2009.

Pivotal to the prime minister's power is his role as the country's military commander. In Baghdad, and several other major provinces, all police and army units formally report first to his office through what are called provincial command centers.

"The prime minister has not hesitated to move around and get involved even in the assignments process in the Iraqi military," the U.S. official said. "I think he is very involved in security policy, he is very involved in security operations."

One of the most controversial military operations in recent months was in Diyala, where the prime minister sent troops from Baghdad who arrested hundreds of Sunni Arabs, some of them associated with the Iraqi Islamic Party, the sect's largest bloc in parliament.

"The arrests were certainly undertaken by the Iraqi security forces, with the knowledge of the central government. In the end, the prime minister knew about them," the U.S. official said.

The Islamic Party accused Maliki's office of deliberately detaining prominent party members, including a candidate for governor in the upcoming January elections.

U.S. officials believe there is no grand sectarian scheme for the arrests, seeing instead a series of overreactions by Maliki based on his ingrained suspicions.

"I suspect these are less motivated politically than they are motivated by an almost knee-jerk reaction on security concerns," the U.S. official said. "The Sunnis are road kill, and probably largely because the prime minister does not trust them."

Askari portrayed the prime minister's military campaigns and policy decisions as nothing less than saving the country from disintegration.

"Without a strong Iraqi government," he warned, "Iraq will be fragmented."

The phrase "new imperial grand strategy" has an interesting source: the leading establishment journal, Foreign Affairs, the Council on Foreign Relations. Foreign Affairs - America's Imperial Ambition - G. John Ikenberry

The invasion of Iraq was virtually announced in Sept 2002, along with the Bush Administration's National Security Strategy, which declared the intention to dominate the world for the indefinite future and to destroy any potential challenge to US domination. http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/nukevault/ebb245/index.htm




The roots of US interests in Iraq were explained by the editors at the Washington Post: "While the United States has an interest in preventing the resurgence of the Afghan Taliban, the country's strategic importance pales beside that of Iraq, which lies at the geopolitical center of the Middle East and contains some of the world's largest oil reserves."

Mr. Obama in Iraq - washingtonpost.com

Until recently such forthright honesty was regarded as improper. Like most acts of aggression, the invasion of Iraq was routinely portrayed as self-defense against an ominous and implacable foe and guided by noble and selfless objectives. But as Iraqi resistance makes it more difficult to install a dependable client regime, and concerns mount that the US might have to allow Iraqis a degree of sovereignty and independence beyond what was intended, the standard fairy tales are no longer adequate to the task of mobilizing domestic opinion to tolerate policy decisions. They are by no means abandoned, but increasingly they are being put to the side in favor of a clearer exposition of why US power centers must do whatever they can to control Iraq.

There is nothing new about the insights of the Post editors. Since World War II, the US has recognized that the energy resources of the Middle East are “a stupendous source of strategic power.” Eisenhower described the Gulf region as being “most strategically important area of the world because of its strategic position and resources." US control is even more important now than before with the prospects of oil becoming a diminishing resource in a world economy that is heavily dependent on fossil fuels for its functioning. Furthermore, the global system is less subject to US domination than in the past so that competition for these great material prizes is becoming more intense, and control of “some of the world’s largest oil reserves…at the geopolitical center of the Middle East” is of paramount importance for US power centers. George Kennan explained that controling this stupendous source of strategic power gives the US "veto power" over what rivals might do.

Zbigniew Brzezinski writes, "America has major strategic and economic interests in the Middle East that are dictated by the region's vast energy supplies. Not only does America benefit economically from the relatively low costs of Middle Eastern oil, but America's security role in the region gives it indirect but politically critical leverage on the European and Asian economies that are also dependent on energy exports from the region."

The Choice: Global Domination Or ... - Google Book Search

The Clinton administration's National Security Startegy declares, "The US reserves the right to the unilateral use of military power for ensuring uninhibited access to key markets, energy supplies, and strategic resources".

Section III - DEFENSE STRATEGY

The first Bush administration's National Security Strategy declares, "we must have the means to reinforce our units forward deployed or to project power into areas where we have no permanent presence. This is necessary in the Middle East, becouse of the free world's reliance on energy supplies from this pivotal region."

http://bushlibrary.tamu.edu/research...trategy_90.pdf