Donald J. Devine

November 23, 2005

Support Military in Iraq

It was a tough week for American Iraq policy. President George W. Bush was understandably pleased to end it with both houses of Congress rejecting resolutions to withdraw U.S. troops immediately.

But the fact the Senate voted 79 to 19 on a Republican chairman’s bill to designate the year 2006 as “a period of significant transition to full Iraqi sovereignty….thereby creating the conditions for the phased redeployment of United States forces from Iraq” represents a momentous change regarding the war. Polls showed two-thirds of the American public also wanted a plan for disengagement although not necessarily a published one available to the enemy.

The shame is that President Bush and the American military have had such a plan almost from the beginning but have allowed their idealistic rhetoric to overshadow what is actually taking place in Iraq. Two years ago this would have been written from Baghdad. As a journalist and political science professor, your editor was invited by the Department of Defense to tour the major Iraqi bases in November 2003 and was fortunately able to return to tell the tale. Political science makes one question idealistic goals such as transforming Iraq to a democracy and spreading it to the entire Middle East, especially given the history of Iraq and the deep divides between majority Shi’a, formerly-ruling Sunni and culturally-distinct Kurd peoples, each with strongholds in separate regions. How did American military leaders in Iraq assess the situation and what were their actual plans?

On the ground, it immediately became clear that the actual goals were more modest. At the time we reported: “Area by area as we traveled around—even with the violence—it appeared just conceivable that each [people] individually might establish order. But when one mixes these inflammable regional, ethnic and religious rivalries, it will ignite as surely as any other unstable chemical reaction forced into a single compound. To create a nationwide democracy from this artificial nation carved in London during the zenith of colonialism would truly take forever.” We were impressed that the U.S. military and civilian leadership there understood these dynamics. American administrator L. Paul Bremer was clear in setting ethnic peace and local federalism as the goals. Military commanders emphasized turning authority over to the Iraqis and militarily separating U.S. troops from direct policing and insurgency control as soon as possible.

A close reading of President Bush reveals he said at the time that U.S. troops would be drawn down to 100,000 by mid 2004 and the top military officials told us they were already preparing to withdraw to more remote, more defensible fortifications, with occupation aimed to be completed by the end of 2005. In a nationally televised April 2004 news conference, the president noted that “Iraqis will then elect a permanent government by December 15, 2005 -- an event that will mark the completion of Iraq's transition from dictatorship to freedom,” implying that U.S. forces would no longer be required. But this rough plan was obscured by also saying troops would stay “as long as necessary” but also adding the ambiguous “and not one day more.”

Still, with all that has taken place in the meantime, this general plan is not so far off course. Certainly, the Sunni insurgency has been stronger and more persistent than estimated and the Shiites and Kurds have been more interested in building their own regions than defeating the insurgency. Iraqi forces have been increased and U.S. troop levels were only temporarily increased again to 160,000 for the December 2005 election. Yet, in testimony to Congress, military leaders have made it clear troop levels would be reduced substantially in 2006 after the election, probably to 100,000 or fewer, delayed but moving in the planned direction. Iraqi leaders have called for reduced U.S. troop levels too.

The proof of the plan is that on November 1 this year, U.S. troops withdrew from their first major installation in the troubled Sunni region, Saddam Hussein’s sprawling 18-palace hill compound in his Tikrit hometown, magnificently straddling the Tigris River, that so impressed this visitor at the time. More important, Brig. Gen. Donald Alston announced at the time that the complex would represent the 30th U.S. base turned over to Iraq this year. Maj. Gen. Joseph Taluto, the 42nd Infantry Division commander, informed reporters that the purpose of the move was to “reduce the footprint” of U.S. forces in the area to “discourage attacks and prepare the way for eventual reduction” and even withdrawal of U.S. troops, without imprudently publicizing any specific date for doing so.

This is what the military leaders told us in 2003. So why does no one know it, that 30 bases have been turned over to Iraqis and that many U.S. forces have withdrawn to more remote and defensible fortifications? As we said at the time, both pro and anti war factions have no incentive to speak about what is really happening in Iraq. The hawks are afraid any news of withdrawal will demonstrate lack of resolve and diminish support for the war while the antis fear that opposition will evaporate if people understand that U.S. presence is being reduced. However useful this posture might have been in the past, the collapse of poll and Senate support suggests it is time for the administration to let the people in on the real strategy.

The problem is that many of those supporting the war have a different agenda. These have not given up the dream either of transforming the Middle East into Western-style democracies or even of creating an American empire to dominate it militarily. Thus, Frederick Kagan in a recent “Blueprint For Victory” piece in the neocon Weekly Standard demanded more American troops be sent to the region with “an ongoing presence in the major troubled cities of the Sunni Triangle” to last until the Sunnis “have abandoned the hope that violence can lead to political advantage.” He claims “To imagine that the coalition can withdraw, turn an insurgency over to the inexperienced Iraqi army and expect that army to defeat the insurgency is folly.” That is pretty much what critics said about Gen. Creighton Abrams’ similar strategy for Vietnam, which we now know was on the way to success if Congress had not cut and run first.

That is the danger today. Recriminations at this time are worse than useless. American troops simply must be withdrawn safely. Although the polls show a majority of the people now think the president deceived them so he could invade Iraq, they are almost certainly wrong. President Bush—and many Democrats now denying it—truly believed the intelligence justified the war. Even if one believed as does the author that it has been clear from the beginning that even if the intelligence was correct, it at most would have justified a quick in-and-out as did the president’s father but not a drawn out occupation and nation building—that is irrelevant now. It is even sillier to blame the war on a cabal, as Colin Powel’s former chief of staff Lawrence Wilkerson did recently, when that “cabal” consisted of the legitimate decision-maker, Donald Rumsfeld, and the vice president. Bureaucrats like Wilkerson pretend not to know the president can rely on whomever he wants for advice—good or bad--and mostly just resent being out-maneuvered.

The Bush Administration has clearly rejected the Kagan/neocon dig-in-and-stay-forever approach as the events on the ground clearly demonstrate, cabal or no cabal. At this point, all Americans must support the military, and the president, on Iraq but it needs to be the real disengagement strategy, not the rhetorical one. The rhetoric has been idealistic for the sake of morale. Now morale is shot and it is time for straight talk on the real policy.

There is little time. Congressional elections occur next November. The U.N. mandate for U.S. occupation has recently been extended only until December 31, 2006. It does not look like international, Congressional or public patience will last beyond then. A rational redeployment will require several more months and it will take all of the skill U.S. military forces have to disengage by then and declare victory on the way out.