Signs of Getting Out Posted by Derek Chollet

After a couple weeks of being pushed out of the headlines by Katrina, Roberts, and the UN summit, Iraq roared back in a serious way this week.  During the past three days, nearly 200 people there – mostly Iraqi police and civilians doing things like waiting in line to get jobs -- have been killed, beginning with 5 suicide bombing attacks on Wednesday alone, which ended up being the bloodiest single day so far.  Clearly, the situation is not getting any better (for an alarmingly comprehensive list of the chaos since Wednesday, check out this timeline).

But lost in all of this has been a few events that seem to indicate that we are starting to get out of Iraq, slowly but surely.  As we’ve discussed here and I’ve written elsewhere, I think that over the next year the U.S. will begin to get out of Iraq for both policy and political reasons – in terms of policy, the insurgency ain’t going away, and our all-volunteer military is stretched too thin and cannot sustain the current pace of operations much longer; and politically, the American people’s support for the current muddle through approach is eroding rapidly (and now, after Katrina, the Administration has even less political capital to spend).

So since pulling out is a policy and political reality, my prediction is that the Administration will make a virtue of necessity, declare victory (or some kind of success) and start bringing the troops home.  I doubt it will do so with much fanfare and it won’t necessarily happen quickly; it will just start happening, and little by little our force presence will get smaller.  Note how this will be framed differently (and in a more politically appealing way) than the withdrawal proposed by Administration’s critics: to Bush, we are getting out because we are “succeeding.”  To his critics, we are getting out because we are failing.  It’s the difference between Saigon 1975 and Sarajevo 2004.

That’s what I think we’ve started to see develop during that past few weeks.  First, ten days ago, American forces withdrew from the southern city of Najaf and turned over control to the Iraqis (this is the first withdrawal this year).  As Juan Cole described it: “We see here the beginnings of the Bush administration exit strategy for Iraq, which is that the south will be turned over to Supreme Council of Islamic Revolution in Iraq (the party that rules Najaf) and Badr (its paramilitary corps). The U.S. military must be convinced that Badr can now handle the Mahdi Army and can protect Grand Ayatollah Sistani from assassination (both are tall orders).”

And the Washington Post, through military sources, described the withdrawal in a broader context, explaining that the U.S. “is pushing for major withdrawals to begin in early spring. Iraqi and U.S. officials had identified Najaf as one of the first places where the United States could draw down its forces. Other cities in the heavily Shiite south, and in the Kurdish north, are likely to be next.”  So stay tuned.

With this, the Iraqis themselves have been talking more openly about the U.S. getting out.  This week a committee of the democratically-elected Iraqi National Assembly, the “National Sovereignty Committee,” referred to the U.S. troops as “occupation forces” (which is apparently a first) and called for setting a timeline for withdrawal.

This recommendation didn’t draw much attention, but another statement this week did: in an interview with American journalists, Iraqi President Talabani said that since Iraqi forces were improving, as many as 50,000 U.S. troops could withdraw by the end of the year. “We think that America has the full right to move some forces from Iraq to their country because I think we can replace them [with] our forces,” Talabani said. “In my opinion, at least from 40,000 to 50,000 American troops can be [withdrawn] by the end of this year.”  After his meeting with Bush at the White House, Talabani walked this back a little – saying that there would be no timetable for withdrawal – but he did not retract the basic thrust of his comments: that as Iraqi forces make progress, the U.S. can start to get out.

My guess is that the main problem the Bush team had with the Talabani statement was one of timing.  They believe that they need to stay until the political process plays itself out – that is, until after a new constitution is approved and new government elected at the end of this year.  After then, the Administration will have no problem with statements like this – in fact, it will welcome and even encourage them, providing the justification for withdrawal that it wants.

Comments

[doc]

...one hopes that our retreat happens slowly enough so that the iraqi soldiers and police end up having a true chance of maintaining the internal stability of the country.

my sense is, however, that 80% of our troop will be home a couple of months before next years' mid-terms.

...that is, should a) the drafted constitution become law of the land, and b) no 'civil war' (yea, i know that's weak - the case can be made that civil war is occuring now in iraq; what do i call it: intensified civil war?) break out over it: then all bets are off.

[J Thomas]

It would be criminally irresponsible to leave 20% of our troops behind in iraq.

We will be out before the elections, regardless.

If things look bad in iraq by, say, next august, our incumbent politicians will look a whole lot worse if our troops are there. Once it's over they can argue that it was the right thing to do, that we had no way to know the iraqis weren't ready for democracy, that every other choice was obviously worse, etc. But if our troops are still there, getting attacked, then the incumbents are in trouble.

We're going to have a full-scale fast vietnamisation because there's no other choice. The hawks in congress don't have the political capital to keep the troops there, and if Bush stabs them in the back they'll impeach him.

[praktike]

Call me crazy, but isn't there a vast middle ground between withdrawing everybody and staying in the same numbers?

[doc]

"It would be criminally irresponsible to leave 20% of our troops behind in iraq."

...not being ironice here, J Thomas, but what major bushco initiative hasn't bordered on criminality?
and as for irresponible, well...

additionally, the current admin ALWAYS believes - usually in the face of overwhelming contradictory evidence - that they can eat our cake and crow about it, too.

so, if the corpses floating in the septic pond that was NO have not changed their attitude ( and the is absolutely no evidence of this), what are a few miltary corpses 1000s of miles away? that way they can hope to fool the americal public while being able to deny 'abandoning' iraq.

[J Thomas]

Praktike, there might not be a great big middle ground between staying in our current numbers and pulling out entirely.

Remember that most of our forces there are inevitably drawn up in defensive positions. We need bases and supply dumps etc, and the guys who maintain all that have to be protected. We have under 40,000 combat troops available, everybody else is busy maintaining the structure.

Could we keep 40,000 combat troops with less support structure? Hardly, if we could we'd be doing it already, we'd have more combat guys and less support. Could we maintain our current defensive perimeters with fewer troops? No way, if we could we'd be using those troops for offensive operations.

So with fewer troops we'd have to abandon some bases and cut back on offensive action, both. What they talk about is removing our presence in the areas that are now peaceful. That means we'd depend on iraqi forces to protect our ground supply people, in all but the most dangerous places. This would not work. So could we eliminate ground transport? Depend on air supply for all our supplies? Would that work?

So OK, say we keep 40,000 troops in one big base. We fly in all their supplies. We establish a defensive perimeter that nothing can get through. Then what?

The natural next step is the iraqi insurgents then establish their safe areas and start running a government in them. They take a number of cities, and they invite the media in to watch them in action. And all we can do about it is carpet-bombing. How would that look better than pulling out completely? Maybe the various militias fight over Baghdad while we're gone, and if the wrong side wins too much we carpet-bomb Baghdad? We'd have to abandon the Green Zone, and when the bad guys take that over we bomb it to hell and gone?

Keeping a presence in iraq would do us no good at all except for the true believers. It would look terrible to moderates. But if we pull out completely, Republicans can shrug and say that iraq is old news, we did the best we could, we were obligated to try, next question?

It's a whole lot easier to put the mess behind us if we're done with it than if we're still trying to justify it.

So my guess is that republican legislators will insist on that. We can't stay in our current numbers because we don't have the troops. We can't reduce troop levels without media incidents that smell strongly of defeat. The entire House and a third of the Senate is up for re-election next year and if we aren't out soon enough they're going to start an impeachment -- maybe on some unrelated charge.

[Dan Kervick]

I note that over the past week the Bush administration has stepped up its anti-Syrian rhetoric, and has ramped up military operations in Western Iraq near the Syrian border. Perhaps we are on the verge of a new push to bolster public support for the US presence in Iraq by manufacturing some new crisis related to Syria and the Syrian border.

Jalal Talabani played his role in this effort, during his trip to Washington last week, by warning about foreign intervention in Iraq, and stressing the need for a continued US presence in Iraq to deter neighboring countries.

[Robert M]

We are not going anywhere! There is no reason to believe that the Iraqi police and military units are ready or capable of covering the country. We leave and the chaos in Iraq as the centfrugal forces of ethnicity, religion and nationality make what is going on in Gaza look like a Mardi Gras parade. The blowback in every country aligned with us or against us will do nothing but to destablize the region. Then when that backlash hits the oil producers the economies of the World.

[mycat]

Robert you may very wel be right about the long term negative consequences of failure in Iraq-but no Republican politician is going to care. Image and spin matter more than facts. Bush has failed in every sted and unstated goal-so it is enevitable that he will claim suces and leave. That's his decision making style.

[mycat]

Oops. Must proofread before posting!

[Robert M]

Bush, his view of conservativism, his management skills and Republican Party policy have exposed. This morning someone on Imus commented on the results of what happened in New Orleans and what is happening in the Hurricane disaster. Their take was because Bush had to be shown a tape of what was going on in the disaster zone what everyone else saw LIVE, everyone now is doing a Bush and rerunning the tape of the history of his Presidency. What they are finding is a management disaster from day one that they suppressed because they were afraid after the murderous attacks of Sept 11, 2001, remember that Guliani was the manager after Sept 11.

As a result of this, Bush can not declare victory in Iraq because it will be highly scrutinized. In fact what will happen is a total revisiting of what is really happening in Iraq. The revisiting will call for a review of the spending of what went right what has gone wrong and what we need to do to improve the situation. This review will recognize that there is more to do and a need for more resources, especially in terms of manpower until there is an ability of the Iraqi forces to hold what has been cleaned out. This means we can not pull out by declaring victory.

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As a result of this, Bush can not declare victory in Iraq because it will be highly scrutinized. In fact what will happen is a total revisiting of what is really happening in Iraq. The revisiting will call for a review of the spending of what went right what has gone wrong and what we need to do to improve the situation. This review will recognize that there is more to do and a need for more resources, especially in terms of manpower until there is an ability of the Iraqi forces to hold what has been cleaned out. This means we can not pull out by declaring victory.

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I doubt it will do so with much fanfare and it won’t necessarily happen quickly; it will just start happening, and little by little our force presence will get smaller.

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They always believe that they need to stay until the political process plays itself out – that is, until after a new constitution is approved and new government elected at the end of this year.

[Amy Laurent]

The entire House and a third of the Senate is up for re-election next year and if we aren't out soon enough they're going to start an impeachment -- maybe on some unrelated charge.

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This review will recognize that there is more to do and a need for more resources, especially in terms of manpower until there is an ability of the Iraqi forces to hold what has been cleaned out.

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[Cindy Margott]

This review will recognize that there is more to do and a need for more resources, especially in terms of manpower until there is an ability of the Iraqi forces to hold what has been cleaned out.

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The revisiting will call for a review of the spending of what went right what has gone wrong and what we need to do to improve the situation.

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This review will recognize that there is more to do and a need for more resources, especially in terms of manpower until there is an ability of the Iraqi forces to hold what has been cleaned out. This means we can not pull out by declaring victory.

[crowd SPRING]

Well The hawks in congress don't have the political capital to keep the troops there, and if Bush stabs them in the back they'll impeach him.

[Collabera]

The blowback in every country aligned with us or against us will do nothing but to destablize the region. Then when that backlash hits the oil producers the economies of the World.

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I doubt it will do so with much fanfare and it won’t necessarily happen quickly; it will just start happening, and little by little our force presence will get smaller.