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Is the U.S. Government Planning for Withdrawal from Iraq?
Here's a question you might consider asking your Representative in Congress, your Senators, and any Presidential candidates who happen to pop by:
"Do you think that the United States should be doing more to plan for the possible withdrawal of U.S. forces from Iraq?"
After all, when people report on, say, U.S. plans to bomb Iran, the standard answer is, "don't worry your pretty little head about that, we plan for every contingency, it would be irresponsible to do otherwise."
How about the "contingency" of a U.S. withdrawal from Iraq? Have you planned for that?When you fail to plan, you plan to fail, as the saying goes.
Or is the default plan to withdraw Vietnam-style, denial until the last possible moment, followed by helicopters from rooftops?
It's not just a river in Egypt, as Stuart Smalley used to say.
There's a growing sense among both America's allies and its enemies that U.S. combat troops, at least, will be out of Iraq by the end of next year, Newsweek reports.
The United States Senate has gone on record favoring a withdrawal by March 2008; the House by no later than September 2008, and quite possibly earlier depending on the progress of the Iraqi government on meeting reconciliation benchmarks laid out by President Bush that they are making little progress towards. Shouldn't the Pentagon be planning for the "contingency" that the people's representatives will, more or less, have their way?
Reviewing the record of previous withdrawals by the U.S. and others, Newsweek says:
the aftermath in every case was made worse by the fact that governments waited so long to admit that a pullout might be necessary. When the moment came, their hasty departures made the chaos that followed that much worse.
If we care what happens to the people of Iraq - and the larger Middle East - after we withdraw, shouldn't we be planning for that?
Kenneth Pollack of Brookings, who has written a study on the aftermath of a U.S. withdrawal, says he is "a bit concerned":
"Before the invasion I was going around saying how important postwar reconstruction was, and I was dutifully reassured: 'We got it covered; we have all these planning cells.' Only to learn after the fact that these efforts were totally half-assed. I'm hearing very similar things now."
Regardless of where you stand on withdrawal, you have to concede that it is now in the realm of possibility. Therefore, the Pentagon should be planning for it. To fail to do so would be "irresponsible," as the Vice-President likes to say. Perhaps, as Members of Congress consider the war spending bill, they may wish to earmark some money for this.
Robert Naiman is Senior Policy Analyst and National Coordinator at Just Foreign Policy .
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7 Comments so far
Show AllSadly, it seems that US troops may be in Iraq (and Afghanistan) for years to come, despite the wishes of the American people and the good sense of many military, intellligence and diplomacy experts.
The Bush-Cheney bunch will at least want US troops to remain until the Bush-Cheney administration leaves office.
Then, any redeployment "defeat" can be blamed on someone else ... probably a Democratic president and Congress.
We have seen this same scenario before ... back in the early '70s in Vietnam. For more on this, see:
"Going in circles: Vietnam, Iraq, calls for impeachment"
PopulistAmerica.com
January 14, 2007
http://www.populistamerica.com/going_in_circles_vietnam_iraq_calls_for_impeachment
Withdraw? From the Middle East? Before the oil runs out and/or Jesus stops by? Good one.
One doesn't need an exit plan if no exit is planned.
The problem will come down to money, will the congress cut it off??? You want to see an exit?? Stop the money and the American involvment will go away like any other nightmare. I think that the politics will trump oil's deep pockets and the money will end. Its always the costs in dollars not lives that run out. In vietnam, the war cost so much, they had to melt all the silver coins to offset the cost--will the new quarters be plastic?? Will the new constitution be on toiletpaper?? Will someone fish the Bill of Rights out of the cesspool??
Thanks, RichM. We are delusional if we believe that there will be troop withdrawal in 2008. Sure, they may draw down the numbers, but no way are they going to redeploy all troops back to the US. Even the so-called "Combat Troops" which may be withdrawn from Iraq won't be leaving the Middle East, and all realistic people know that the neocons have no intention of tearing down the enormous permantent military bases that have been constructed, nor the horrifically large Neocon Embassy which is under construction. The US never leaves anywhere completely, else why do we have military bases in nearly every nation on Earth?
We as a people need to rise up and state clearly and loudly and frequently: ENOUGH IS ENOUGH!
The benchmarks pRESIDENT Bush likes to speak of is basically signing over the rights for US oil companies to explore, drill and market Iraqi oil. Once that is all drawn up, we will see some of our soldiers come home. RichM is correct, however, stating that we never left any previous conflict. The morons are currently building the largest embassy the world has ever seen. Furthermore, with a combined military budget surpassing the entire world's combined budgets, this administration can't secure their own so called "green zone". So how the hell do they expect the Iraqis to do it? Perhaps they realize just how incompetent they are. I think the best solution for America is to offer Bush, Cheney, and company, all of the money in the treasury, to go away. Pay em off to get em outta here! Think they wouldn't accept? It would be a lot less costly and significantly less detrimental to our troops, our country, the planet, and civilization as we know it.
i'm not even reading the article... America blew up Iraq, America should pay to fix it. However, America can't be trusted by the Iraqies or global community so it must fund an international peacekeeping and stabalization force. Keeping American troops there is futile. Withdrawal is selfish and will cause the country to further slip into civil war. Get the rest of the world to clean up the mess... Just don't ask them to pay for it.