7/12/05:IRAQ:DOES BUSH HAVE EXIT STRATEGY(GLW/FWD)
- From: uneoo@xxxxxxxxxx
- Date: 8 Dec 2005 16:06:43 +1000
GREENLEFT WEEKLY AUSTRALIA, 7-DEC-2005
www.greenleft.org.au
IRAQ: DOES BUSH HAVE AN EXIT STRATEGY
Doug Lorimer
With a growing majority of US voters favouring the rapid withdrawal of
US troops from Washington's failed counter-insurgency war in Iraq, and
many in his own Republican Party worried about a voter backlash in the
2006 mid-term congressional elections, US President George Bush's
administration is having to give the impression that it has an Iraq
"exit strategy".
In a departure from previous statements, US Secretary of State
Condoleezza Rice told Fox News on November 22 that the current level
of US troops in Iraq - 160,000 - would not have to be maintained "for
very much longer", because the US-recruited and trained Iraqi security
forces would soon be able to take over the fight against the
anti-occupation insurgency from the US occupation forces.
Rice claimed the training of Washington's new puppet Iraqi army was
going "extremely well", adding: "The president has said that as soon
as Iraqi forces are ready, we want to see a reduction in our own
forces, and I think those days are going to be coming fairly soon when
Iraqis are going to be more and more capable of carrying out the
functions to secure their own future."
The November 26 Los Angeles Times reported that a "former top Pentagon
official who served during Bush's first term said he believed there
was a 'growing consensus' on withdrawing about 40,000 troops before
next year's congressional election".
However, Lawrence DiRita, the chief Pentagon spokesperson, told Agence
France Presse on November 28 that no decisions have been made on US
force levels next year beyond withdrawing the 20,000 troops used for a
build-up of US forces for the December 15 Iraqi parliamentary
elections.
The LA Times article observed that the "administration's pivot on the
issue comes as the White House is seeking to relieve enormous pressure
by war opponents. The camp includes liberals, moderates and old-line
conservatives who are uneasy with the costly and uncertain
nation-building effort.
"It also followed agreement this week among Iraqi politicians that the
US troop presence ought to decrease. Meeting in Cairo, representatives
of the three major ethnic and religious groups called for a US
withdrawal and recognised Iraqis' 'legitimate right of resistance' to
foreign occupation."
The November 26-27 Cairo conference was organised by the League of
Arab States. The fact that all of the representatives of the political
parties in Washington's puppet Iraqi regime had to accept the
legitimacy of the nationalist armed resistance movement is a
reflection of the huge antipathy among the Iraqi people toward the
US-led occupation.
According to a survey of Iraqi public opinion conducted in August for
the British Ministry of Defence (MoD), 82% of Iraqis are "strongly
opposed" to the presence of US and other foreign troops in their
country, and up to 65% of Arab Iraqis support attacks by the Iraqi
armed resistance on the US-led occupation forces.
Reporting on results of thegpg: [don't know]: invalid packet (ctb=66)
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MoD-commissioned survey, the October 23
London Sunday Telegraph commented that it "demonstrates for the first
time the true strength of anti-Western feeling in Iraq after more than
two-and-a-half years of bloody occupation. The nationwide survey also
suggests that the coalition has lost the battle to win the hearts and
minds of the Iraqi people."
The November 26 LA Times article reported that some US military
analysts "say the emerging consensus" on the need for the US to
withdraw some of its troops from Iraq "might have less to do with
conditions in Iraq than the deployment's long-term strain on the US
military. And major questions about the readiness of Iraq's fledgling
security forces remain, posing risks for any strategy that calls for
an accelerated American withdrawal.
"As recently as late September, senior US military commanders said
during a congressional hearing that just one Iraqi battalion, about
700 soldiers, was considered capable of undertaking combat operations
fully independent of US support."
Lieutenant Kenrick Cato, a US Army officer assigned to train the
puppet Iraqi troops, told the June 10 Washington Post: "I know the
party line. You know, the Department of Defense, the US Army,
five-star generals, four-star generals, President Bush, Donald
Rumsfeld: The Iraqis will be ready in whatever time period. But from
the ground, I can say with certainty they won't be ready before I
leave. And I know I'll be back in Iraq, probably in three or four
years. And I don't think they'll be ready then."
In an article in the December 5 New Yorker magazine (posted on its
website on November 28), renowned investigative journalist Seymour
Hersh reported that "a key element of the drawdown plans, not
mentioned in the president's public statements, is that the departing
American troops will be replaced by American airpower. Quick, deadly
strikes by US warplanes are seen as a way to improve dramatically the
combat capability of even the weakest Iraqi combat units. The danger,
military experts have told me, is that, while the number of American
casualties would decrease as ground troops are withdrawn, the over-all
level of violence and the number of Iraqi fatalities would increase
unless there are stringent controls over who bombs what."
However, Hersh also reported that within the US military, "the
prospect of using airpower as a substitute for American troops on the
ground has caused great unease. For one thing, Air Force commanders,
in particular, have deep-seated objections to the possibility that
Iraqis eventually will be responsible for target selection."
Hersh reported that the US Air Force commanders he had spoken to
expressed the concern that with the US-backed Iraqi security forces so
heavily infiltrated by the Iraqi resistance movement, US warplanes
would be directed to bomb targets selected by the insurgency.
>From Green Left Weekly, December 7, 2005.
Visit the Green Left Weekly home page.
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