Withdraw This? Posted by Heather Hurlburt

I have been looking for, and/but not finding, insightful analysis of whether the UK "Reid memo" that surfaced this week is correct that  the Coalition will have multiple provinces ready, really ready to be turned over to Iraqi forces later this year and next.

The Daily Mail story that broke it, and most of the commentary that followed, referred to the paper as a secret "Exit strategy."  Maybe it is for the Brits, but not for us.  It proposes to halve our troop levels in a year or so, a cut that manages to be breathtaking without, of course, being an exit.

Either it is a brave and optimistic statement of support for Iraqi forces, and understanding for the need to get ourselves out of their way -- or it is a political strategy for hanging on to Congress in the '06 midterms. 

I know, I know what you're thinking.  But if those provinces are in fact not ready, cutting our troop strength in half magnifies so dramatically the threat for those who remain.  All the problems we have now with porous borders, shell game insurgencies and angry civilians continue.  The downsides are so obvious -- and so potentially damaging politically for '08 -- that the Iraqis must really be ready in those provinces, right?

But then the memo says the in-country commanders disagree with this.  Uh-oh.   I'd like to see the "out now" and "stay the course" wings of the progressive movement get together, look at what folks more expert than I have to say, and agree strongly that, if the Iraqis are not well and comprehensively ready, this is the worst of all possible worlds.  Is that too much to ask?

Comments

[Cal]

It's not clear how certain this is. They've talked about this before and pulled back. If it's just a goal, contingent on conditions in the country, I don't see any problem with this.

http://www.military.com/NewsContent/0,13319,FL_leave_071205,00.html

--Anthony Cordesman, a defense analyst who closely follows progress in Iraq and visited the country last month, said in an interview that he agrees with U.S. commanders that troop reductions next year are a reasonable goal.

--"The probabilities are reasonable," Cordesman said. "Is there a reasonable chance that you can begin a systematic reduction of coalition forces toward the end of the year and watch it move forward in 2006? The answer is yes. But we just don't as yet know" how political and economic progress will unfold.

[doc]

...'reasonable chance' in this case is to the iraqi political process as karl rove is to honesty in the current WH.

[byronius]

I just read Anthony Cordesman draft report on the CSIS site and it appears that his assessment supports a drawdown plan for Coalition troops and upswing in Iraqi troops but he does not indicate that it be province - related. The report does describe in more detail the mechanics of the US/Coalition Advisor Teams that are embedded with ING and Iraqi Army units ( and less so with Police and other units). As you calculate the units and Army troops that are " fully capable versus partially capable" - the get the sense that we have a long way to go - even if its an improvement from last year. That's not counting Police, Border Units or Infrastructure ( Oil) Units which appear to be less ready. Two points to remember however: (a) Money - we (US) will have to spend a lot more money to keep the existing units operational and that's not going to go away by 2006. (b) Permanent US Presence - I dont think in the near term future ( 10 years) we will NOT have a significant presence in Iraqi. It may be less intrusive and perhaps more remote but a certain core combat component ( 25 -30K?) will be there for a long long time.

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