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December 1st,
2006 - Iraq Panel to Urge Pullout Of Combat Troops by ‘08 |
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Iraq Panel to Urge Pullout
Of Combat Troops by ‘08 By Peter Baker and Thomas E. Ricks Washington Post Staff Writers Friday, December 1, 2006; A01 The bipartisan Iraq Study
Group plans to recommend withdrawing nearly all U.S. combat units from Iraq
by early 2008 while leaving behind troops to train, advise and support the
Iraqis, setting the first goal for a major drawdown of U.S. forces, sources
familiar with the proposal said yesterday. The commission plan would
shift the U.S. mission in Iraq to a secondary role as the fragile Baghdad
government and its security forces take the lead in fighting a Sunni
insurgency and trying to halt sectarian violence. As part of major changes in
the U.S. presence, sources said, the plan recommends embedding U.S. soldiers
directly in Iraqi security units starting as early as next month to improve
leadership and effectiveness. The call to pull out combat
brigades by early 2008 would be more a conditional goal than a firm
timetable, predicated on the assumption that circumstances on the ground
would permit it, according to the sources, who spoke on the condition of
anonymity because the commission's report will not be released until next
week. But panel members concluded that it is vital to set a target to put
pressure on Iraqi leaders to do more to assume responsibility for the
security of their country. "It's really about
transitioning from a combat to a support role, and basically making very
clear that this is no longer an open-ended commitment and we're going to get
this done whether the Iraqis like it or not," said one of the sources.
"Everybody understands that we're at the end of the road here." The choice of early 2008 as
a goal could also, intentionally or not, change the nature of the debate over
the war at the height of the U.S. presidential primary season. If the
commission's plan is successful, the war might recede as an issue, as many
strategists in both parties hope. But if U.S. commanders do not meet that
goal, or if they do but violence only escalates, it may inflame the struggles
for both parties' nominations. Democrats, who captured
control of both houses of Congress in last month's midterm elections, and
some Republicans have pushed strongly for a timetable for withdrawing U.S.
troops. But President Bush has firmly resisted such demands, warning that it
would amount to surrender and could destabilize Iraq even further. At a news conference
yesterday after a summit with Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki in Amman,
Jordan, Bush seemed to douse the idea of withdrawal in response to news
reports about the Iraqi Study Group's recommendations. "This business
about graceful exit just simply has no realism to it whatsoever," Bush
said. But aides later cautioned
against interpreting that as opposition to any change in the U.S. troop
posture. "That's not the case," said one senior official, who spoke
on the condition of anonymity. "His position is he's not entering this
process with defeat on his mind" for the sole purpose of getting out,
the official said. Some options being discussed by the Iraqi Study Group and
his own administration's internal policy review, the official said, are
"things that he's very open to." Secretary of State
Condoleezza Rice, in an interview with CBS News, sounded more open to the
concept of drawing down forces. "The whole goal here is to transfer
responsibility to the Iraqis and to give them enough capability to take those
responsibilities," she said. "Obviously, as those responsibilities
are transferred, as the capability improves, then American forces will be
less in evidence and less needed. That's a natural outcome." Maliki, too, signaled that
he would be receptive to such a transition in six months. "I can say
that Iraqi forces will be ready, fully ready, to receive this command and to
command its own forces. And I can tell you that, by next June, our forces
will be ready," he told ABC News. The Iraq Study Group,
chartered by Congress and led by former secretary of state James A. Baker III
and former congressman Lee H. Hamilton (D-Ind.), concluded its deliberations
this week with a draft report about 100 pages long. The report is scheduled
to be released next Wednesday and will include a variety of conclusions and
recommendations about the region. Among other things, the commission
considered proposals to reach out to Iran and Syria and to convene a regional
conference to bring all of Iraq's neighbors into the process of stabilizing
the country. The panel included a
significant caveat for the 2008 goal for troop withdrawals by recommending
that commanders should plan to pull out combat units by then unless
"unexpected developments" make them decide that such a move would
be unwise, the sources said. Still, they said, the plan would put the onus on
U.S. commanders to try to meet the goal or explain why they failed to. Pulling out combat units
would not mean the end of the U.S. military involvement in Iraq, which could
continue in a different form for years. The withdrawal would be partially
offset by an influx of advisers, trainers and embedded troops. The number of
such troops now stands at roughly 5,000 and should be quadrupled to about 20,000,
the group's plan says, according to a source. The commission envisions
leaving at least several thousand quick-strike U.S. combat soldiers to
protect all those other American troops. Although it was not clear
how many U.S. troops would be left in Iraq by 2008, some people knowledgeable
about the commission's deliberations have said that it might be possible to
reduce the force of 140,000 to half by then. "There'll still be a
presence there that will be significant just because of the nature of embedded
forces," said one of the sources familiar with the commission's report.
"It won't be what we have now, I'll tell you that." The transition from a combat
mission to a support mission would be a radical shift in the nature of the
U.S. presence in Iraq, in place more than 3 1/2 years since the invasion that
toppled Iraqi President Saddam Hussein from power. The commission sees this
shift in emphasis as so crucial that it suggests that U.S. commanders begin
by reassigning troops directly out of military units already in Iraq, rather
than waiting for new advisers to deploy from the United States. But some military
specialists warned that such a transition could result in more violence or
even let the country slide into a full-scale civil war. Many U.S. military
commanders believe that the American presence is keeping a lid on Iraq's
civil conflict. "I think as we pull down troops, the violence is going
to get worse - and that will make it harder to get the Iraqi army stood
up," said Frederick W. Kagan, a defense scholar at the American
Enterprise Institute. Nor would cutting the troop
presence increase pressure on Maliki and other Iraqi leaders, a senior U.S.
intelligence official contended earlier this week. Rather, he said, it would
likely make Iraqi officials feel more endangered and, so, less likely to take
risks and make difficult decisions. Others in Washington
cautiously welcomed the emerging report. "I think that the Baker report
is ... going to change the debate in this country," Sen. John F. Kerry
(D-Mass.) told CNN. Sen. Christopher J. Dodd
(D-Conn.), speaking on MSNBC's "Hardball," said that "I
suspect there may be a growing bipartisan support in this country for what
Jim Baker, Lee Hamilton, the other members of that commission have put
together." Sen. Carl M. Levin
(D-Mich.), the incoming chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee,
offered a careful assessment: "It's a welcome change in course, although
it's not as specific, or it's not as pointed, or it's not as clear as I would
like." External link: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/11/30/AR2006113001175.html |