|
|
|
|
Exit, by the left
By David Isenberg
Even before the recent national
elections in Iraq there was increased talk in
the United States about when and how the US should
pull its troops out of that country. And although
the White House has not publicly spoken on the
issue, which was noticeably absent in President
George W Bush's February 2 State of the Union
speech, troop withdrawals have been announced.
Last Thursday, Deputy Defense Secretary
Paul Wolfowitz said that Pentagon authorities had
decided to start reducing the level of US forces
in Iraq next month by about 15,000 troops, down to
about 135,000. Currently, the US has about 116,000
army soldiers in Iraq and about 42,000 soldiers in
Kuwait.
The reduction involves about three
brigades of army soldiers and marines whose tours
were extended last month to bolster security ahead
of the January 30 elections, and an additional
1,500 airborne soldiers who were rushed to Iraq
for a four-month stint.
Ironically, this
follows not long after a call by Democrat Senator
Ted Kennedy for troop withdrawals. On January 27
at the Johns Hopkins School of International
Studies he said, "At least 12,000 American troops
and probably more should leave at once, to send a
stronger signal about our intentions and to ease
the pervasive sense of occupation."
This,
however, may be less bold than it seems. According
to Larry Korb, former assistant secretary of
defense in the Ronald Reagan administration, "What
Kennedy said about removing the 12,000 troops
seemed correct. What nobody seemed to notice was
that we beefed up US forces in Iraq prior to the
election to beef up security, so why shouldn't we
make a virtue out of necessity?"
In fact,
Wolfowitz testified before Congress last week that
"we overlapped our deployments and extended the -
I guess it was OIF3 [Operation Iraqi Freedom 3] -
so that we get a bump up of about 50,000 to cover
the elections".
Others in
Congress have also called for withdrawing troops. On
January 15, after returning from a trip to
Iraq, Congressmen Martin Meehan (Democrat) proposed that
Bush and Iraqi Prime Minister Iyad Allawi
announce a timetable for a phased drawdown of US
forces in Iraq. He proposed that the US begin the
process of drawing down the majority of forces by the
end of this year and all but a small and mobile
force of no more than 30,000-50,000 could remain by
mid-2006. He also said the "United States must
clarify with absolute certainty our intention not
to maintain a permanent military presence in
Iraq".
His proposal differs in this
regard from that of Kennedy, who said Washington's
goal should be to complete its military withdrawal
as early as possible in 2006. Ted Carpenter,
director of foreign-policy studies at the Washington,
DC-based Cato Institute, said Meehan's proposal
offers a very good start but "bothers me because
it calls for leaving about 30,000 troops in
country". He said, "It is imperative to get all US
troops out of the country promptly."
At
a subsequent speech at the Brookings Institution
in Washington on January 25, Meehan said, "It may
have been possible at one point in time to pacify
Iraq with an overwhelming American force. Had we
gone in with 'several hundred thousand troops'
like General Eric Shinseki said we would need,
perhaps the insurgency never would have developed.
We'll never know for sure. But whatever chance we
had is gone now. Ramping up our troop presence now
will not turn the tables in Iraq, and it would
probably make the situation worse. The undeniable
fact is that the insurgency is being fueled by the
very presence of the American military."
Much of the debate over an exit
timetable depends on one's view of how quickly
effective Iraqi security forces can be recruited
and trained. At a meeting of the Senate Armed
Services Committee on Thursday, General Richard B Myers,
chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, reported
that less than one-third of the troops and police
that the Pentagon says have been trained and
equipped are adequately prepared to handle most
threats.
Pentagon officials presented
figures showing a total of 136,065 Iraqi forces
"trained and equipped" or "operational" as of January
31, including 56,284 army troops and 57,290
police. But under questioning, Myers said only
about 40,000 troops were deployable, meaning they
"can go anywhere and do anything". Wolfowitz, in
turn, acknowledged high absentee rates in many
units, reaching about 40% in the Iraqi army.
Furthermore, even if
the number of trained Iraqi forces were higher they
would still have to contend with a growing
number of Iraqi insurgents. During the Senate
hearing, Democratic Senator Carl Levin quoted
General George Casey, the multinational-force commander,
who recently said that coalition forces killed or
captured about 15,000 suspected insurgents last year. He
went on to say that this means that the
previous US estimates of an insurgent force of 6,000-9,000
fighters were clearly inaccurate.
Not
all Pentagon officials, however, believe a
timetable can be set. The most important,
Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, said on the
Larry King Live
television program of February 3, "Well, you can't put a
timetable on it. I wish I could. I'd dearly love
to be able to tell the American people that on
this date certain, we will have accomplished it.
But the problem is, there are too many variables."
And even Wolfowitz, in the Senate hearing,
said, "If we can bring Iraqi forces up more
quickly by keeping Americans in Iraq a little bit
longer, just in cost alone it's a worthwhile
trade-off."
For those who support keeping
US troops in Iraq, any suggestion that they be
withdrawn is usually derided as "cutting and
running". But according to Carpenter, "'Cut and run'
is just a slur by people who have no strategy. If
they have their way we will be in Iraq for several
years, if not decades to come."
David Isenberg, a senior analyst
with the Washington-based British American
Security Information Council (BASIC), has a wide
background in arms control and national security
issues. The views expressed are his own.
(Copyright 2005 Asia Times Online Ltd. All
rights reserved. Please contact us for information
on sales, syndication and republishing.) |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
 |
|
|
|
|
|
All material on this
website is copyright and may not be republished in any form without written
permission.
© Copyright 1999 - 2005 Asia Times
Online Ltd.
|
|
Head
Office: Rm 202, Hau Fook Mansion, No. 8 Hau Fook St., Kowloon, Hong
Kong
Thailand Bureau:
11/13 Petchkasem Road, Hua Hin, Prachuab Kirikhan, Thailand 77110
|
Asian Sex Gazette Middle East Sex News
|
|
|
