On the face of it, this sort of news seems like a big deal:
The top U.S. commander in Iraq has submitted a plan to the Pentagon for withdrawing troops in Iraq, according to a senior defense official.
Gen. George Casey submitted the plan to Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld. It includes numerous options and recommends that brigades — usually made up of about 2,000 soldiers each — begin pulling out of Iraq early next year.
It’s not. If you asked the right person and greased the right wheels you could skim through Pentagon plans to invade Great Britian, defend Florida from a Cuban invasion and safeguard the Earth against an attack from outer space. The Pentagon lays down contingency plans for practically everything.
The neocons might have imagined that Chalabi-ruled Iraq would become a permanent staging base for mischief throughout central Asia, and maybe I’m giving ‘everybody else’ too much credit here, but it seems as though the rest of America understood that we would fight our war and go home. The ten-million-dollar question being when.
The last paragraph tells the story:
The plan, which would withdraw a limited amount of troops during 2006, requires that a host of milestones be reached before troops are withdrawn.
Top Pentagon officials have repeatedly discussed some of those milestones: Iraqi troops must demonstrate that they can handle security without U.S. help; the country’s political process must be strong; and reconstruction and economic conditions must show signs of stability.
Question: how is this any different from where we were two years ago? We understood from the beginning that the Iraqis would work out their self-governance thing and then we’d go home. Just in case that understanding didn’t make it all the way to the top al-Sistani made it perfectly clear that we would be shown the door as soon as it was safe for us to leave. So to me this planning doesn’t mean much. Of course we’re planning for a withdrawal. If no such plans existed, then that would be news.
A better question is about those benchmarks. Are they realistic? If so, then super. If not then General Casey’s planning means about as much as William Wallace’s famous terms of surrender.
srv
I’m hoping that the Joint Chiefs are less along for the ride now and actually pushing the civilians into a decision making corner.
Perry Como
The Democrats are starting a chain of excercise clubs/barbershops. They call it the “Cut ‘n Run”.
Bob In Pacifica
This withdrawal would be based on what? That “democracy” will have flowered? That resistance to the American occupation will have evaporated in the hot desert sands? That the electricity will have been restored?
We have been told by this administration that any talk about withdrawing until the job is done would be treasonous, but the goal posts keep moving. So what is the good general basing his plans on?
ppGaz
Discussion about the war goes on as if it existed in a vacuum. It does not. It exists firmly embedded within the political realities of the United States.
Support for the war is in the yellow range and headed for the red line over at the left end of the meter. When it hits the red line, which will be soon, anyone associated with the thing is going to get burned by the steam coming from the relief valve. Translation: Republicans lose control of Congress next year unless something reverses the current trends.
Once that happens, the war is over. The current clusterfuck and its public relations machine holds together only because the GOP controls all the power structures. Once they don’t, it all falls apart.
The PR debacle of yesterday is what you get when a mixture of panic and rage replace the shrewd scheming that characterized this Republican hegemony until now. Congress will crack first, obviously, because the most vulnerable in the GOP power tower are the representatives in the House.
Meanwhile, multiple forces are at work. The CIA leak investigation will continue to expose and embarass the White House and WHIG. The press has lost its fear of the Rovians and the Dobsonites and is becoming more appropriately hostile, asking tougher questions, making more realistic assuptions. The people are no longer hypnotized by the spuds’ doublespeak. Chip, chip, chip.
If Iraq is really going to take advantage of the opportuity it has been given to get its act together, it is going to have to move quickly. The hostile dependency we’ve created there is probably not going to allow that to happen, but if it is to happen, it will happen because Iraqis make it happen …. that’s my point, that we cannot make it happen.
Richard Bottoms
I think John has the idea that the Bush/Cheney will not do virtually what Murtha proposed: pull out the troops in a big way over the next six months.
They’ll just continue to call Democrats cowards for suggesting publically what they intend to do privately.
Sine.Qua.Non
Tim, I’vee been saying the same thing about planning before we even got in this mess and then after we took Baghdad, we were supposed to be pulling out “soon.” Yeah, well….same old tune, same dance steps. Nothing new here. Just like you said.
James C.
Re the “PR debacle of yesterday” that ppGaz refers to, I am reminded of what Bevan recently wrote. Wanting to withdraw U.S. troops from Iraq doesn’t make you a coward. What does make you a coward is when you truly believe we should get our troops out of Iraq immediately, you have a chance to vote for doing exactly that, and you choose not to because you fear the political consequences of being on record revealing your position to the public. This was not a vote on some obscure provision of the budget, it was the most supremely important subject on which members of Congress have the privilege and duty to vote.
So hats off to Cynthia A. McKinney of Georgia, Robert Wexler of Florida and Jose E. Serrano of New York for having the courage to vote what they really believe. And shame on those who didn’t.
ppGaz
What makes you a coward, as in this case of despicable Republican cowardice, is when you have control of the house and its rules and its votes … and instead of having a debate and vote on a responsibly-worded measure, you deliberately craft a measure that is worded in a way that nobody can vote for …. and then claim that your vote is legitimate. And you carry off this pathetic stunt in full view of people whom you have sent abroad to put themselves in harms way for your policies … thereby demonstrating that you don’t have any real confidence in your policy at all.
The extended prevarication, venality and cowardice of the Republican scum on the war issue are the reasons why this misadventure enjoys dwindling support and why the adminstration has lost almost all of the goodwill and trust by the people that it once held.
But hey, let Balloon-Juice, which once held a lot of promise, become the Society For The Preservation of HMS Titanic Deck Concerts, I don’t care at this point. The deck is now at the sort of angle at which you pretty much have to hold onto something to keep from sliding off into oblivion. But keep playing, by all means …. it’s very comforting.
Richard Bottoms
Always intersting how Democrats are criticized if they decline to commit political suicide over a nuanced position. Murha didn’t suggest leaving tomorrow so why should Democrats vote for a resolution saying exactly that?
Steve S
Of course the problem is, none of this is going to happen until the US leaves and is no longer there to blame for everything going wrong.
Iraqis need to learn a little bit of Welfare Reform. We cut ya off after 3 years, as you ought to go get a job. Is this mean-spirited? Republicans don’t normally think so, why are they whining now?
Steve S
Aye. We all know how this is going to work… It’s the standard Republican plan.
Democrats will call that we do the right thing. We’ll end up withdrawaling the troops over half-hearted Republican objections because we know that’s what we need to do.
Then the Republicans will use it as a campaign issue for the next 30 years “We would have won, if only those yellow bellied Democrats hadn’t forced us to withdraw! WHAAAAA!!!!!!!”
I equate the parties to a divorced couple. The Mommy(Democrats) says do your homework. The Daddy(Republicans) says homework can wait for later, let’s go PARTY! WOO HOO! It’s a favoritism game, and the guys who argue in favor of the fun stuff instead of reality are going to be the favorites. That is until you flunk your final exam and realize you aren’t going to graduate.
Jay C
Well, Tim, this report from Gen. Casey is also “Not A Bombshell” since it has been widely reported on: usually (ironically) at the very same time Rep. Murtha’s “withdrawal” “proposal” hit the news big-time – the irony, of course, being too obvious to state (so I won’t). However, the reaction of House Republicans IS rather remarkable: the general atmosphere of hysterical panic and impassioned mudslinging seems quite out-of-proportion to a (frankly) slightly-off-the-wall proposition floated by a single (even if veteran and well-respected) Congressman.
It cannot bode well either for the Bush Administration, Congress, the public or the nation as a whole – if at this point in the Iraq conflict even the merest hint of some sort of official critique (still less oversight) of the Admin’s conduct of the campaign so far elicits the sort of overheated partisan skull-popping that Murtha’s resolution engendered.
If things can get this bad now, what will they be like 11 months from now (absent some enormous improvement in conditions in Iraq and an economy that isn’t in the tank again)?
Pace ppGaz above, I dread looking forward to the next election campaign. Despite whatever “throw the rascals out” sentiments are around in the country, if Republicans really fear (even remotely) the chance of losing control of the House (still less the Senate), I think that they will spend whatever it takes (and for the GOP today, that’s a lot) to keep their gerrymandered majority intact: and that, IMHO, will spark a campaign of hysterical hatemongering, bloody-shirt-waving, mudslinging, falsehood and invective that will make the treatment John Murtha got look mild.
S.W. Anderson
Republicans will get a substantial portion of the troops out ahead of the ’06 election, although many of the removed troops may remain in the region so they can be sent back in for operations or to quell crises.
When U.S. troop presence is well down, there’s an 8 in 10 chance Iraq will blow wide open. Shiite militias, the most dangerous of them backed by Iran, against Sunnis and foreign jihadists. Kurds will likely try to separate and have their own independent country. If they can’t manage that, they wait and watch, intending to jump in with the apparent winner so as to ensure a place in the eventual power structure and a high level of autonomy.
Worst-case scenario: Iran watches as a bloodbath develops, then send in troops to restore order, “stabilize the country” and set up a puppet state. If this happens, Bush (God help us) or the next president has to decide whether to go to war with Iran.
CaseyL
Jay C, I don’t think the “hysterical hatemongering, bloody-shirt-waving, mudslinging, falsehood and invective” will work real well with anyone but The Sacred Base, which is now reduced pretty much to serious mental cases.
And I don’t think the GOP should put its hopes in the low voter turnout typical of off-year election. If people are good and pissed off enough, and/or deeply worried about the future of this country, GOP hysterics will only strengthen their resolve to get out and vote those barking-mad traitors out of office.
John
John Cole’s opening comment sheds a lot light on 2 subtlies about the partisan discussion of this war, its planning, its excecution and present options.
The manner in which John Cole brushes off the this news from the Pentagon as meaningless considering the amount of intelligence and contigencies the Pentagon always has ready, opens a Pandora’s Box into which reports were given credence and which weren’t in the build up to war. This goes to the heart of the matter concerning those who talk about misleading the public, cherry-picking intelligence and fixing facts.
This willingness on Cole’s part to see grey and nuance in order to provide context to news WHEN IT SUITS HIM goes to the heart of the partisanship problem. By that I mean that politcally engaged and partisan people have a tendency to broad brush info or take it at face value when a cursory examination suits his biases but when the info does not, he’ll take pause and “read between the lines” and attempt to understand its nuance, hidden meanings and full context until he reaches a point where he has a plausible explanation to downplay the info’s significance.
Mind you, I acknowledge that both sides do it and do not claim otherwise. The sticky part of it is when we give it honest and genuine analysis to decide when this behavior raises a valid point and when its simply partisan spin.
Naturally and sadly, most people already have that answer depending on their political orientation and the nature of the info.
So, as far as this info is concerned. The real question is whether this point made by Cole is accurate and extremely pertinent or weak observation that fogs up the more valid point that we see at a first glance.
I don’t claim to know nor will I guess. Was this phase-out submitted by Casey a strong suggestion that Rumsfeld is ignoring or is simply an errant contingency that holds little value? I’d like to know.
Tim F.
John,
JC didn’t shift gears. I wrote the post. I’m a Democrat, and because of that I strongly advise against my own party making a big deal out of this story. It would be perfectly normal for Rumsfeld to request a pullout plan because pulling out is what we meant to do all along. The real question is whether Casey’s metrics are realistic because if they aren’t, we could implement Casey’s plan to the letter and still be stuck in Iraq indefinitely.
Pb
Did Gen. Casey submit that plan to Rumsfeld this week too? I’m not buying it, Tim. If you’re right, then we probably won’t hear any more about this plan because it’s been buried in with the other disused Pentagon plans. I don’t think that’s the case.
RobertL
Too bad the Pentagon has plans for just about any contingency except, apparently, the occupation of Iraq.
Jay C
CaseyL:
I agree with you about the probability of a higher-than-normal turnout for next year’s Congressional elections; if things are perceived to be going badly in the country, a LOT of folks are going to be prodded to shake off their political apathy and get out there and vote.
I would disagree, though, with your dismissal of the importance of The Base (headcases or not) to today’s GOP. Given the huge percentage of US citizens who don’t give a rat’s about politics and/or elections (quite large for an “advanced” country); elections can very easily swing on the participation level of a dedicated voting bloc (minority or not). Unlike a Presidential contest (with a single, easily identified focus-figure) off-year elections often hinge on state and local issues and/or personalities: which is where the party-line discipline of a Base will have the most leverage.
If next summer’s polls show Republicans trailing in preference polls for House/Senate races, I still think panic mode may set in bigtime: I don’t think it’s too out-there to imagine local GOP dirty-tricks types dragging out sub rosa Iraq-related smear campaigns in desperation: adding “unpatriotic traitor sellouts” to their usual campaign mud if looks like 2006 stands even a remote chance of becoming the Elephant’s Graveyard.
James C.
ppGaz appears to have “lost it.” His fulminating reaches new heights in his post above. Many of the unpatriotic and loony Left were emotionally undone by the exercise of having to confront their own rhetoric, and the anti-war left must be stunned today at what happened in the House yesterday. Only three votes? All that work? All those marches? All those posts at the fever swamp bulletin boards of Kos, atrios, Balloon Juice, et.al.? For three votes?
The wombats, such as ppGaz have more excuses than a teenager: It wasn’t the real Murtha resolution; it’s a terrible political trick; I will not participate in the assault on Congressman Murtha etc, etc, etc What pathetic losers!
Pb
James C.,
Do tell.
You appear to have “lost it.” Let’s see how far that despicable McCarthyite attitude gets you.
ppGaz
Who are you talking to, and what about?
I am not aware that I have mentioned the name of the congressman you mention, nor the content of his measure, at any time in any thread on the subject, ever. Nor have I referred to any “assault” on any congressman.
Are you fucking insane? Go rant to your case manager.
ppGaz
THAT was funny, Plumbum.
(I’ll take the liberty of calling you by your Periodic Table name.)
Pb
ppGaz,
While initials, they stand for something else.
Also, what kind of a name is “ppGaz”? :)
ppGaz
It’s a combination of initials and a state abbreviation.
The G is large because commenters here couldn’t tell q from g when I used all lowercase.
James C.
ppGaz – There are a couple of psychiatrists whose names could be provided to you with the hope that they might reduce some of your rage…rage that appears to be informing what little sense you may still possess.
Bob In Pacifica
As an aside in the cowardice debate, I see the Republicans making great strides here. The “Colonel Danny Bubp” that Jean Schmidt quoted actually got as far as Tampa, Florida in his service during Operation Iraqi Freedom, so it’s clear that Bubp knows all about fighting versus cutting and running. Compared with most of the chickenhawks in Congress he’s a fuckin’ warrior.
Bubp also won a “Ten Commandments” award which apparently overlooks “Thou shalt not kill.” Or maybe his translation is “Thou shalt not get thine ass in a place where thou’ll kill or be killed.”
ppGaz
That’s the spirit, asshole. Never let the complete absence of anything to say get in the way of going ahead and saying it.
Do you have a point relevant to the thread? Other than calling Democrats cowards and me a psycho, I mean?
Andrew
Tim F.:
Not quite. The “plan” to withdraw troops is not the same kind of plan as one for invading a country or defending Taiwan, etc. Casey’s plan is an option for an operation in progress, not a theoretical construction like most of the other plans and much smaller in scale than the Pentagon’s FUNCPLAN/OPLAN/CONPLANs.
A nice summary of Pentagon planning:
http://blogs.washingtonpost.com/earlywarning/2005/11/inside_us_war_p.html
stickler
And here I thought Mr. PpGaz had chosen his handle because of its relevance to a Soviet machine gun. Learn something every day.
Circling harpies like Jean Schmidt are the canaries in the Republican coalmine. This isn’t 1969; the Democrats aren’t the ones who got us into Big Muddy, and it’s not their internal divisions on national display. Far worse, the Republican leadership has far more ethical and legal wounds in 2005 than the Democrats have ever had.
There’s a whole metastasis of cancers growing on this Presidency. The whole party is going to pay the price, no matter how fast we get out of Iraq.
TallDave
Answer: Two years ago there was no democratically elected government and there were almost no Iraqi forces capable of fighting the insurgency, independently or alongside our forces. None had their own area of operation. Their positions were routinely overrun. Today, there are around 80,000 ISF troops capable of fighting. They’ve stood their ground in every fight this year, and they have several AOs for which they assume responsibility with minimal backup from coalition forces. They are being deployed to permanant garrisons in areas the coalition clears, leaving less and less terroritory for the insurgents to run to.
http://billroggio.com/archives/2005/10/training_the_ir_1.php
They are making these plans because a good number of our troops are probably coming home in 2006 as more and more AOs are handed over to Iraqis.
Hope this helps. Good night all.
ppGaz
Sorry, no.
Just initials and a state abbreviation.
I’m much more boring than I appear at first glance :-)
Off the record, of course.
ppGaz
That’s Sunday NYT, the section you have to pay for. Emailed to me a short time ago. This raises some serious questions about the 10-15 years it might take to be able to leave there with a stable and mature defense force in place.
But …. from way upthread …
I really doubt it. The war is lost insofar as public opinion is concerned. That ship has sailed. I don’t think that congressional candidates are going to spout the Rovian talking points, because they are, above all, craven devotees of reelection. They will cave in favor of their own reelections. It is the GOP in the House of Representatives who will nail shut the doors to this war, because they know that trying to defend it will get them defeated.
Thus does a real democracy work, in its own slow and clumsy and yet beautiful way.
etc.
One thing that has not yet been mentioned in this thread is that the US Army, for all its prowess, is not built to fight a struggle like the one it is currently facing in Iraq. As much as I hate to use sports analogies for military conflict, well, here I go. The US Army is built to achieve a KO in the early rounds and is facing an opponent using rope-a-dope tactics. Unless a miracle occurs or the basic structure of the US military is changed, we will lose in Iraq.
There exists absolutely no national political figure calling for the changes to the US military that might make victory in Iraq possible. Given that, it remains to determine how the inevitable US defeat can be rendered the most palatable.
Jason
As much as it’s going to drive you guys bonkers, TallDave is exactly right. The exit strategy all along has been the development of the Iraqi army to take over from American forces. We were working on that since about May of 2003.
It doesn’t happen overnight, and there are no shortcuts. You must build a solid corps of NCOs, which takes years, and you must also build competent commanders and staff officers to direct its operations at every echelon from platoon level through division.
There is no way to create an instant NCO corps – especially in a country which has no professional NCO corps tradition of its own.
We will see significant withdrawal of US combat formations once the Iraqis are able to field proficient brigades capable of fighting on their own power and not before.
That has been the case since the very earliest days of the occupation, and that has been the plan. The fact that Bob in Pacifica doesn’t realize that and thinks the goalposts have been moving is proof that he hasn’t been paying attention.
There’s a lot of that going on around here.
ppGaz
Nope. That’s where your understanding parts ways with reality.
The withdrawals will be brought on by politics in the US. That ship has sailed. Politically, in this country, this party is already over, and support is not coming back.
Republicans in Congress will decide this. They will either move to bring the “war” down to a whisper, or they will be defeated and move on to other things, and then new congressmen will take over.
Ultimately, in the US, the people govern. The people were bamboozled into this war, but they’ve caught up, and they will exert their will during the next eleven months.
Watch, and learn.
Stormy70
While all you guys bitch about “no plan” all the time, events move foward in Iraq under your noses.
They may have nailed Zarqawi’s ass in Mosul. Interesting timing considering his family and tribe in Jordan have disowned him today. Someone may have ratted him out. Still not confirmed, but DNA testing is going on right now. I hope he’s dead. I bet his family and tribe were worried about a blood fued erupting over the hotel bombings, and renounced him.
Also, why is Pelosi tabling the vote on Murtha’s resolution? The Dems are too cowardly to vote on it after getting their clocks cleaned on Friday. The Dems cannot defend their words, so I don’t see how they could ever defend America.
Sojourner
Source please.
whatsleft
Come on, sojourner, you already KNOW the source – Stormy’s nether end.
Sojourner
I was just curious as to whether she found the story on the label of a scotch bottle.
Stormy70
Source here. Do you guys only read Kos or Balloon Juice. It would explain your overall ignorance. At least I can read the scotch label, you guys would have to wait for it to be posted on a lefty blog.
whatsleft
Silly me, Stormy, since I gave you the benefit of the doubt and searched under “Pelosi tables Murtha resolution”, which of course yielded no such results – BEFORE I posted my comment. However, I will give you credit for quoting an anonymous source that states there will be further discussion. I for one would like to see that famous “up-or-down” vote that your party screams about applied to this resolution, but of course, the ruling party was too “chicken” for that. And to deny it the vote and offer instead a non-binding “sense” that they ALL voted against – what kind of moronic thinking offers a resolution specifically to be voted against? The Founding Fathers would be proud.
ppGaz
Meet Stormy, everybody. The world’s newest expert on legislative strategies.
Retief
Jason is very close to being right without quite getting there.
In May 2003 the folks in charge still thought we were going to pack up and let Chalabi and the INC worry about forming an army and fighting any dead-enders there might still be. That was our first exit strategy.
We spent $92 million on that even before the war. [www.globalpolicy.org] On the eve of war we were training Chalabi’s militia [www.defenselink.mil] in HungaryWhat we did on 23 May 2003 was dissolve the Iraqi army and cancel ongoing efforts of the US officers in Iraq to organize a newish one. Bremer also noted that the occupation authority planned to create in the near future the New Iraqi Corps [www.iraqcoalition.org] as the first step in forming a national self-defense capability for a free Iraq.In October 2003 Bush announced the graduation of the 750-storng first battalion [www.presidency.ucsb.edu] of the new Iraqi army. And told us that “less than a year from now, Iraq will have a 40,000-member military force, trained and dedicated to protecting their fellow citizens.” He also lauded Bernard Kerik’s training of Iraqi policemen.
In November 2003 the Australians were training the new Iraqi army [www.theage.com.au] and calling for more police trainers to be sent.In May 2004 Bush claim we’re correcting deficiencies in our training [www.whitehouse.gov] that made Iraqi forces “fall short”. He tells us that five Iraqi army battalions are in the field now, with another eight battalions to join them by July the 1st. The eventual goal is an Iraqi army of 35,000 soldiers in 27 battalions and a total of 260,000 Iraqi soldiers, police, and other security personnel, trained, equipped, and fighting. Also in May 2004 Bush tells us at a speech at the U.S. Army War College [www.washingtonpost.com]
We accepted our NATO allies’s offer of training help in the Summer of 2004. [www.cnn.com]Bush says our training of Iraqi forces is producing mixed results [www.washingtonpost.com] in December 2004.Our administrators in Iraq asked for more money [us-politics.news.designerz.com] for training Iraqi security forces in January 2005NATO offered more training [www.cnn.com] on Bush’s Listening Tour in February 2005.I know this doesn’t just happen overnight but is what we see really what we should expect from this effort? And how are we changing the plan to adapt two years on? Oh yeah, we’re going to train more Iraqi forces.
Jason
Nope. I was there personally, and we were already laying the groundwork for retraining all kinds of Iraqi security forces, starting with the police and highway patrol, and then the ICDC right after that. It was always a seedcorn program, and the goal, from the very beginning, was to train those guys up to create an NCO corps for future iterations to take over from US formations.