More on the Withdrawal

More on the planned troop withdrawals, from Friday's New York Times:

"In a classified briefing to senior Pentagon officials last month, the top American commander in the Middle East outlined a plan that would gradually reduce American forces in Iraq by perhaps 20,000 to 30,000 troops by next spring if conditions on the ground permitted, three senior military officers and Defense Department officials said this week."

There's nothing new in that really. Talk of a planned draw-down has been in the works for weeks now. However there is clearly more emphasis in this article on meeting the necessary requirements for an improved security situation, before any troops will be withdrawn.

"But in his assessment, given as part of a larger regional analysis, General Abizaid also warned that it is possible that the Pentagon might have to keep the current levels of about 138,000 American soldiers in Iraq throughout 2006 if security and political trends are unfavorable for a withdrawal.

Also last week, a new commission that includes General Casey and the new American ambassador to Baghdad, Zalmay Khalilzad, as well as the Iraqi defense and interior ministers, held its first meeting to define the conditions to be met for a phased American troop withdrawal. The commission, whose recommendations are due to Mr. Jaafari by Sept. 26, said in a statement that the main measurement will be the ability of the 176,000 Iraqi military and police forces now in place to assume enhanced security roles. Other considerations include the size and strength of the insurgency, and the ability of the new Iraqi government to take on governance duties."

The real question of course is how the Pentagon and the Bush administration are going to measure whether these conditions are being met. It's a simple fact that the security situation in Iraq has declined month after month, year after year, since the initial invasion over two years ago. Does the Bush administration really believe it's possible for the security situation to improve in any sense of the word that force levels can be brought down? It's hard to see how, despite the emphasis on improved security requirements, this can be any more then an effort to provide some benchmarks, however arbitrary, that will allow the administration the leeway to start removing troops as it becomes more and more politically necessary. Though the repeated emphasis by General Abizaid that security conditions must be met is comforting, the fact that the Bush administration can even talk realistically of improving the security situation without a drastic increase in the number of troops stationed in Iraq indicates that they are still dramatically out of touch with reality. Of course, the real question for some time has been whether even stationing more troops in Iraq would do any good. There are those on the left and the right who argue at this point that American troops are simply a military and political target for the insurgency; the former in that they give the insurgents targets for continued bombings, and the second in that they give the insurgency a reason to exist in the first place in that they have the goal of forcing American soldiers out of Iraq. But the insurgency's strategy has changed considerably since it's inception shortly after the invasion. In fact the insurgency seems to be aiming more and more of it's efforts at the Iraqi government, and at igniting a civil war between Kurds, Sunnis and Shiites. Comparing the death toll of American soldiers vs. Iraqi soldiers, police, government officials and civilians, one could almost be led to believe that for all their lethality, the attacks on American soldiers are now a secondary effort. Also, there is no doubt that we have never once had enough soldiers in Iraq to even attempt to secure peace throughout the country at any given time. We did not have them after the invasion, and we do not have them now. To me, it's simply not that clear that putting more soldiers on the ground in Iraq would not help to achieve the objective of defeating, or at least crippling, the insurgency.

I should say my feelings about the war have changed somewhat recently. Of course I was completely opposed to the initial invasion. For many on the left, opposition to the invasion has been retained as opposition to the occupation, and then opposition to the continued presence of our troops in Iraq, whatever their goals may be. I simply do not feel the same way. I feel that, even though the excuse for war in the first place has long been discredited, we do now have a legitimate purpose for being there-attempting to create an Iraqi democracy(or at least secure peace in the country)-that renders irrelevant the fact that the invasion was a mistake in the first place. I suppose I feel that the old cliche about making a bed and having to lie in it applies to us in Iraq. Basically it comes down to this; we broke the country, and now it's up to us to put together again. And I simply cannot countenance any longer those on the left that feel that the only choice is to leave the country as quickly as possible, and leave the Iraqis to a civil war that we created. We owe it to them to attempt, for years longer if necessary, to secure peace and democracy in their country, and we cannot find it morally acceptable to leave until it is absolutely clear that either the democracy is working, or that there is absolutely nothing else we can do and we would only be throwing away more lives to stay. Many who oppose the war, on the left and the right, say we're at that point already. I simply cannot believe that yet. We've never made the effort there that we made in Vietnam; this administration has been unwilling to ask Americans to make such sacrifices. Whether we would be willing to is another question entirely; I think the answer to that question is no, especially considering that Americans were most supportive of the war when it was for bogus reasons and we were promised it would cost us little, and seem to be thinking otherwise now that we see soldiers dying in numbers greater then in the invasion and no end to the either the insurgency or the billions the war is costing us a month. How I feel about our fickleness, I'll save for another post.