by Damozel | Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates and Admiral Mike Mullen are recommending a modest shift of troops from Iraq to Afghanistan, according to The New York Times. After consultations with General Petraeus, they presented their recommendations to President Bush during a video conference (NYT).
Under the proposal, an Army brigade and a Marine battalion would be sent to Afghanistan by early next year, adding about 4,500 troops to American forces there. They would represent a partial but still significant move toward meeting repeated requests from American commanders in Afghanistan for three more brigades, a reinforcement that the commanders say is necessary to carry out the mission there and to combat a resurgent Taliban.
The recommendation indicates that the next president will inherit a force in Iraq that has slightly more troops than in January 2007, when President Bush announced his troop reinforcement plan. Some administration officials voiced hope in July that the additional troop withdrawals by the end of Mr. Bush’s term could amount to as many as three brigades.(NYT)
General Petraeus has been very cautious about reductions in troops in Iraq, contending that 15 brigades should remain there till next June..(NYT) Gates and Mullen would like to see it get down to 14. (NYT) Under current circumstances, it seems odd to me that they'd override the wishes and advice of General Petraeus. As the piece points out, they've lost 2000 Georgian troops.
Surely the Maliki government's apparent repudiation of the Sunni Awakening Groups represents a threat to stability in Iraq, along with problems between Arabs and Kurds. I want withdrawal as much as anyone, and of course I'd rather see it happen sooner than later. I just think it's odd that they'd be willing to take any risks with the current "success" (measured by a few months) of their beloved "surge." I don't know anything about military matters, but General Petraeus does, and if there is a return to sectarian violence, seems as if that puts us back to square one (?)
I actually don't understand the strategy now in play. On September 1, US forces handed over the Anbar region, formerly the site of the Sunni Insurgency, but brought under control largely by the Awakening Groups.
I mean, this part of it is good news:
The US president, George Bush, praised the people of Anbar, scene of more than a quarter of US combat deaths in Iraq since 2003, for turning against al-Qaeda's Sunni Islam militants. "Today, Anbar is no longer lost to al-Qaeda – it is al-Qaeda that lost Anbar," he said.
Much of Anbar was once in the grip of al-Qaeda. The region witnessed fierce battles against US forces and Iraq's Shiite-led government.
Some of the bloodiest fights of the conflict have taken place there, including two devastating assaults by US forces on the city of Fallujah in 2004.
"We would not have even imagined this in our wildest dreams three or four years ago," Iraqi national security adviser Mowaffaq al-Rubaie said before the ceremony.
"If we had said that we were going to hand over security responsibility from the foreign troops to civilian authority, people would laugh at us. Now I think it's a reality." (News.Scotsman; h/t Cernig)
But here's the rub:
Following the 2003 US-led invasion, many members of Anbar's Sunni tribes turned to al-Qaeda in Iraq and other insurgent groups.
The ambush of four US contractors in the Anbar town of Falluja in March 2004 - whose burned corpses were dragged through the streets - was a low point for American efforts to pacify the province.
But in late 2006, Anbar began a dramatic change after Sunni tribal leaders turned against al-Qaeda, accusing the movement of attempting to dominate the insurgency.
The Sunni tribal leaders formed "Awakening Councils", and began to take charge of security. Once the councils emerged, the US military backed the with money and weapons.
Anbar became a much less dangerous place, but the Awakening Councils remain a separate military and political force in the country.(BBC News; emphasis added)
Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki's Shi'ite-led government has been accused of promoting the sectarian interests of Shi'ites while neglecting Iraq's Sunni Arabs. Critics say services like roads, water and electricity were improving more quickly in Shi'ite than in Sunni areas (Reuters).
On the plus side, it does seem that Maliki has been making efforts to reach out to Sunnis in Anbar by "cracking down on Shi'ite militias and successfully wooing the main Sunni Arab bloc back into government."(Reuters).
On the other hand: In an interview with Reuters, Major-General John Kelly, commander of US forces in Iraq, expressed only heavily qualified optimism
"How confident am I that this (insurgency) is over? I'm only as confident as I look to Baghdad," he said. "It's not really up to the police or Marines any more, it's up to the government. They know what the reconstruction needs of the province are."...
Kelly said al Qaeda would struggle to regain a foothold, but keeping that depended on continued reconciliation with Baghdad.
"In Anbar, they are no longer an insurgency. They're a loosely organised bunch of murderers," he said. "Could they come back? Sure, if the the Iraqi central government did something to enrage ... to alienate these people," he said.(Reuters).
I wrote here and here about the Maliki government's crackdown on the Awakening Councils and the resultant re-escalation in tension. Cernig has an excellent post on this issue.
So I wonder about the political motivations behind the troop reductions. The following strikes me, I must say, as a bit cynical:
Other administration officials argued that such a reduction was necessary to demonstrate to the American public that there was a return from the security gains made during the so-called surge and to keep the pressure on Iraqi officials to make political progress.(NYT)
Suicide Bomber Targets "Awakening Group" in Iraq, Kills 25
More on the Threat to the Success of the Surge
Good News/Bad News: US & Iraq Nearing Agreement on a Security Deal; Meanwhile, a Key US Strategy May Be in Serious Trouble
Admiral Fallon Discusses US foreign policy on BBC's Newsnight
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