I don't doubt that Odierno and Petraeus are pushing what they think is best for the US military but I don't believe what they are saying has any chance of taking place. Ranking the power of the actors in Iraq I'd say 1)Iraqi people, 2)Iraqi government, 3)Iran, 4)Bush admin., 5)US military, 6)US Congress. The Ricks report has to be taken in that context.
'The immediate all-or-nothing debate in Washington over troop levels represents a false dilemma, some military officials said.'
Who putting forth an 'all-or-nothing' option? Here's the relevant section of the Feingold-Reid bill:
(d) Exception for Limited Purposes- The prohibition under subsection (c) shall not apply to the obligation or expenditure of funds for the limited purposes as follows:
(1) To conduct targeted operations, limited in duration and scope, against members of al Qaeda and other international terrorist organizations.
(2) To provide security for United States infrastructure and personnel.
(3) To train and equip Iraqi security services.
To call that "all-or-nothing" is to misrepresent the debate.
'U.S. officials also calculate that underneath the anti-American rhetoric, even Shiite radicals such as cleric Moqtada al-Sadr don't really want to see a total U.S. pullout, especially while they feel threatened by Sunni insurgents. Also, officials think any Iraqi government will prefer to keep a small U.S. combat force to deter foreign intervention.'
No, I think Moqtada al-Sadr means it when he says he wants the US out. 'Any Iraqi government' we install will want the US but it shows a lack of imagination to think that there are other possible Iraqi governments that could take power.
'Officials now dismiss the 2004-06 years -- when Gen. George W. Casey Jr. was in command -- as a fruitless "rush to transition," as one senior defense official here put it.'
I don't the Iraqi people are going to grant an occupying power a 'do-over'. Sorry.
Boston Globe 10/12/06: "The Army is making provisions to keep at least 140,000 troops in Iraq through 2010, senior Pentagon officials said yesterday, in a stark signal that top commanders see little prospect of reducing American force levels soon and are bracing for more violence."
We're not reducing our presence in Iraq beyond what is demanded of the rotation schedule and maybe a blip around the '08 elections depending on political concerns. A few brigades out in a showy fashion to show 'progress' has been part of the playbook in '04 and '06. But we're staying.
Posted by joejoejoe at June 10, 2007 07:25 AMIraq is the staging point for Bush's Middle East empire. It's all about the oil: who has it and who needs in the 21st century.
If anyone thinks a Democratic president (as Howard Dean ridiculously claims) is the ticket out of Baghdad, think again.
Here's what Hillary Clinton told the NYTs: In the interview conducted in her office, Sen. Clinton said that there were "remaining vital national security interests in Iraq that would require a continuing deployment of American troops."
National security interests? Hmmmm, like oil?
Posted by Christopher at June 10, 2007 07:38 AMGuiliani is even MORE psychotic than Hillary on Iraq. Here's what he told the Weekly Standard:
"We're at war. And we're at war because they're at war with us. I mean, sometimes, when you listen to these debates in Congress, and you listen to the politicians debating, you sort of get the impression that they think we're in control of whether we're at war or not."
"They're at war with us. They want to come here and kill us. And they did on September 11, and they did a long time before September 11. Way back in 1993, they came to this city and killed people."
Guiliani almost makes Bush sound reasonable.
To my chagrin, I have to agree with the above posters. We're staying. The bases installed in Iraq and the embassy are "facts on the ground".
Whether or not there are helicopters landing on the roof to evacuate US personnel is up to the Iraqis. It is unlikely they will be assaulting the bases in the near term.
The "hydrocarbon laws" rammed down the Iraqi's throats were designed to assure western oil dominion over the revenue flowing from Iraqi reserves no matter how the Sunni-Shia-and Kurds settle-up. Next stop: Iran.
I pity the next president of the US.
Posted by gtash at June 10, 2007 07:49 AM1) where are these forces coming from? I don't think that the military has adequate personnel to sustain this for any period of time, given the wholesale sestruction of the Army and the Natl Guard on Bush's foreign adventurism.
2) where is the money going to come from? are the Iraqis going to pay for this? our national credit card is maxed out, and this occupation ain't exactly cheap.
3) is the public willing to support it? not f*ing likely. I thought this was a trial balloon when I read it. I suspect that the public response will be overwhelmingly negative.
4) the long term scenario for the US in Iraq is NOT Korea, it's Israel.
Posted by susan at June 10, 2007 08:42 AMI have only to consult my bumper sticker:
"Hey chickenhawks. Grow a pair. Let's fight them here."
A photoshop worker saved JFK didn't he?
Imagine what Left Coasters could do!
You don't steal 120 acres of primo Baghdad real estate and spend nearly $600 million to build an American fortress...., oops, I mean "embassy" and then think we're going to leave after the next election.
It ain't gonna' happen.
Posted by Christopher at June 10, 2007 08:52 AMWhat makes you so sure there will be a Dem President in 2009?
Posted by Cahnman at June 10, 2007 09:16 AM"And we had post-occ occ, post-occ occ, post-occ occ until Daddy took the funding away..."
It never ends with these clowns: the cutting back on the imperial occupation troop levels in Iraq is always in the dim distant future: 6 months from now, 6 years from now, 6 decades from now.
Eventually, the American people are going to get really really tired of this crap and they will finally pull the plug and it will end. The Democrats ended the funding of the Vietnam war and that miserable chapter in American history ended.
Posted by james k. sayre at June 10, 2007 10:25 AMChristopher posted on 10 June 2007 at 08:52 AM:
"...You don't steal 120 acres of primo Baghdad real estate and spend nearly $600 million to build an American fortress...., oops, I mean "embassy" and then think we're going to leave after the next election..."
Just think of it as the modern Krak des Chevaliers Castle moved a few hundred miles east.
Posted by PrahaPartizan at June 10, 2007 10:27 AMGuiliani is right. The terrorists want to come here and kill us. Guiliani will make a good President. He is the man the terrorists would least like to see win next year. I believe the terrorists are hoping John Edwards wins. He is very naive, an empty suit, and dumber than a box of rocks.. A male version of Nancy Pelosi.
Posted by Wankankuk at June 10, 2007 11:48 AM"I pity the next president of the US."
-(Posted by gtash )
Why? The 'next president' will be completely in his or her element-continuing the thematic entrenchment of American imperial domination. The problem is America itself on a 'meta' level, not who or who is not president. Capitalist primitive accumulation is for the West, a fait accompli, not subject to 'political' changes. That is the point where all thinking should begin.
"...the Pentagon reaches for reality and common sense."
-(Steve Soto)
Certainly. But only at the behest and the contingencies of the imperial continuum and the drive for a deeper survival. This is now not only irreversable, but inimical to everything but its own dictums.As such it is endemic, as its own event horizon.
T Wankakuk:
You are right about terrorists will come over to hurt us. However, they will come over from Afghanistan and not from Iraq. Because Bush/Cheney took their eye off the real base of AL-Queda and started this adventure in Iraq for controlling vast oil reserves. In doing so these stupid administration overlooked the fact that Saddam was number one enemy of AL-Queda and would not allow them a base in Iraq. As a result, Al-Queda went to our friends the Kurds in north and trying establish a base there. One of the reasons Saddam went after Kurds was that.
Posted by suresh at June 10, 2007 12:25 PMThe terrorists are here already. They reside in the White House and in "an undisclosed location."
A smart man once called them the-congressional-military-industrial-complex and no one listened.
Posted by Sharon at June 10, 2007 12:31 PMYou beat me to it, Sharon.
Posted by Christopher at June 10, 2007 01:38 PMWhen forced to deal with the administration's detachment from reality and their own lack of troops for a long-term occupation, the Pentagon reaches for reality and common sense...........
Watch what happens between now and and then. As for Feingold-Reid-forget it, no one is paying much attention to it, does not warrant any.
Posted by at June 10, 2007 03:27 PMIMHO, I humbly disagree. Just what would be so wrong with putting the 50,000 troops in charge of guarding the borders, and letting whatever happens, happen? Force the Iraqis to stand up, meanwhile our forces are protecting THEIR country from being invaded by the Iranian evildoers, or whomever the current ooga booga threat is?
It's really quite simple.
It's really quite simple.
Posted by Undeniable Liberal at June 10, 2007 03:40 PM
I agree !
You know, Lieberman is pushing for a military action against Iran. I wish he would STFU. The Democrats need to cut him loose.
Posted by Judith at June 10, 2007 03:53 PMProblem is-he is right !
Posted by at June 10, 2007 03:55 PM"Because Bush/Cheney took their eye off the real base of AL-Queda and started this adventure in Iraq for controlling vast oil reserves."
-(suresh)
The oil reserves trope is certainly true and 'real.'
But this ignorant belief that Al Qaeda is the 'real danger' has proliferated to such an extent that it has become a truism; as if the imperial savagery in Afghanistan is somehow justified, whereas the same abomination in Iraq is somehow ethical and moral is a travesty. That does not, nor never has computed and is just another falsity enabling America to justify itself and elide condemnation.
The problem is not Al Qaeda and never has been. The problem is an unchanged American and Israeli foreign policy of state terror which has forced the hand of groups such as Al Qaeda.
That foreign policy is what must be examined, accounted for and destroyed.
It is reprehensible that at this late date, even among so called 'liberals,' that the clear logic behind Al Qaeda's terror goes unexamined Now why is that?
For fear of being forced to realize that it has been justified? For fear that the craven justifications of an unabated Isareli terror have been a primal cause?
That remains terra incognita.
Failure to examine and rectify the operational nexus of the dual terror states will always give Al Qaeda the moral high ground.
Perhaps that is why so many on the so called left work overtime never to go there.
This is why the 'Al Qaeda not Iraq' trope rings with such shameful incoherence. Until 'the liberal' left can come to admit that Al Qaeda was justified all along, however hideous, its right wing opportunism will only continue to enable the fascism it professes to oppose.
Posted by Jill Bains at June 10, 2007 04:37 PMThe terrorists are here already. They reside in the White House and in "an undisclosed location." -(Sharon)
-Excellent.
This should be internalized .Millitary 'terror' is not merely a motivic feature of American foreign policy but its primary modus operandi. Economic terror is generated from what is incarnate.
Curiously, while everyone knows this to be true, very few reflect this reality in their thinking.
I may also comment as to the "undisclosed location." It is Israel.
Posted by Jill Bains at June 10, 2007 06:47 PM