I prefer my title to the NYT opinion piece title called The Wrong way to leave Iraq.
The right way to leave Iraq is after we stabilize it, which we are in the process of doing as shown here and here.
First lets take this thing apart and watch as the NYT speaks with a forked tongue or in better words, out of both sides of its mouth.
As Americans argue about how to bring the troops home from Iraq, British forces are already partway out the door. Four years ago, there were some 30,000 British ground troops in southern Iraq. By the end of this summer, there will be 5,000. None will be based in urban areas. Those who remain will instead be quartered at an airbase outside Basra. Rather than trying to calm Iraq’s civil war, their main mission will be training Iraqis to take over security responsibilities, while doing limited counterinsurgency operations.
That closely follows the script some Americans now advocate for American forces in Iraq: reduce the numbers — and urban exposure — but still maintain a significant presence for the next several years. It’s a tempting formula, reaping domestic political credit for withdrawal without acknowledging that the mission has failed.
First the writer shows an incredible ignorance of why the British left Basra to begin with. Lets look back to the statements made at the time, back in February of 2007.
Mr Blair said on Sunday that Iraq's own armed forces and police were now in the main frontline control of security in Basra.
Operation Sinbad - to transfer the lead role to homegrown forces - was complete and had been successful.
Thousands of British troops have been involved in operations with the Iraqi army against rogue police units, local militias and al-Qaeda groups.
But once that is is finished large scale military patrols will end.
However, a sustantial British force will remain at their permanent base at Basra airport to provide support for Iraqi.
Mr Blair said reconstruction had followed the improved security "and we have been able to make real progress."
The transfer of frontline control is a significant part of moves towards a total handover of control of Basra province to the Iraqi authorities.
It is one of the main "conditions" being used in making decisions on withdrawing UK personnel from the region.
Now it looks like they misjudged that stability and left too soon, as shown by statements and news reports that the British should "retake" Basra or pull out. but that is besides the point.
"If we don't redominate the ground, we have to accept casualties. That's pretty Catch 22 to me."
"Retake", Redominate". They pulled out because they had thought they had stabalized it and the Iraqi's were ready to assume control. Simply put, they jumped the gun.
The NYT "opinion" piece writer, whether deliberately or just ignorantly, implies that the British pulled back to back away from a "civil war".
I guess they didn't bother to do their homework to see the reason the Brits did pull back. A search engine must be too difficult for them to understand the use of.
Further into this Opinion piece we get to the doublespeak, fork tongued talking out of both sides of the writers ass, ummmmm, I mean mouth. ooops?
That closely follows the script some Americans now advocate for American forces in Iraq: reduce the numbers — and urban exposure — but still maintain a significant presence for the next several years. It’s a tempting formula, reaping domestic political credit for withdrawal without acknowledging that the mission has failed.
If anyone outside the White House truly believes this can work — that the United States can simply stay in Iraq in reduced numbers, while ignoring the civil war and expecting Iraqi forces to impose order— the British experience demonstrates otherwise.....
[...]
And Basra should be easier than Baghdad. Most of the population is Shiite, and neither Al Qaeda in Mesopotamia nor other Sunni insurgent groups have a significant presence. Elsewhere in Iraq, where internal rivalries are overshadowed by the Sunni insurgency, sectarian civil war and rampant ethnic cleansing, a reduced American force might find itself in an even worse predicament. The clear lesson of the British experience is that going partway is not a realistic option.
So let me get this straight, the writer is admitting that the British leaving too early, staying on the outskirts, will not work and Britain has shown us this by example and that Baghdad will be more difficult than Basra....right?
WELL.
The United States cannot walk away from the new international terrorist front it created in Iraq. It will need to keep sufficient forces and staging points in the region to strike effectively against terrorist sanctuaries there or a Qaeda bid to hijack control of a strife-torn Iraq.
So, after telling us what didn't work, while lying about the reasons for the British stepping down in Basra, this brilliant writer NOW suggests we do exactly what they just said not to do.
WOW.
Words fail me at how obviously confused the writer is in trying to make contradicting points in the same article.
Just WOW.
The only way to leave Iraq is to stabilize it, continue to train the Iraqi's until we are damn sure they are capable of sustaining their security.
Any other option is unacceptable and will only harm America.
Others talking about this piece can be found at memeorandum.
Jules Crittenden, The Moderate Voice, Don Surber, Hot Air, The Strata-Sphere, Gateway Pundit and NewsBusters.org
[Update] War games show the consequences and difficulties of withdrawal before Iraq is stabilized.
Once U.S. troops left, however, the chaos in Iraq would escalate. Shiite militias would drive Baghdad's Sunni population into Iraq's western Anbar province, which is almost exclusively Sunni, the war gamers concluded. There would be a power struggle within Anbar among tribes backed by outside Sunni Arab states, including Saudi Arabia and Syria .
Rival Shiite factions would fight one another to control much of the rest of the country, and Iran presumably would back one side, although the gamers couldn't assess how overt Iranian interference would be. Turkey would consider entering Iraq from the north to thwart the Kurds, who desire independence and claim some of Turkey as part of their homeland.
Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al Maliki's government would be unable to control the country. Indeed, the gamers concluded, his government could collapse unless Iran threw its support behind it.
"The mess we would leave behind would be awful," the participant said. "The ethnic cleansing is happening now. Once we're gone, absent a political solution that would allow the Iraqi Army to go into action, all of that will be accelerated."
[...]
The military will be vulnerable . . . . You are going to go out in a combat situation," Sestak said. "I think we can do greater damage if we don't have a firm grasp on the military implications."U.S. troops are likely to leave an Iraq that's still embroiled in fierce sectarian violence, he said. "How quickly can the military move its 160,000 troops out? What about the 100,000-plus contractors? How many of the military's 45,000 Humvees should be left behind for the Iraqi Army? Which of 64 military bases should be closed? How does the military protect its main route out of Iraq toward Kuwait ?"
Sestak estimates that it would take at long as two years to withdraw.
America's future in Iraq will be at center stage next month, when Gen. David Petraeus , the top U.S. military commander in Iraq , and Ryan Crocker , the U.S. envoy there, give an assessment and recommendation to Congress on Iraq's security and political situation.
The war gamers' only issue was getting out and at what cost.
By the end of the game, the players decided that the exercise had "captured how bad it would be," said the participant who declined to be identified.
"I don't worry about how we will get out of Iraq ," Anderson concluded about the latest war game. "I am worried about the Iraqis we will kill on the way out."
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