Iraq: US Troops Needed for 10 Years

Reuters:

Iraq will need foreign troops to help defend it for another 10 years, but will not accept U.S. bases indefinitely, government spokesman Ali al-Dabbagh said.

"Of course we need international support. We have security problems. For 10 years our army will not be able to defend Iraq," Dabbagh told the state-run al-Iraqiya television in an interview broadcast late on Sunday.

"I do not think that there is a threat of an invasion of Iraq, or getting involved in a war. (But) to protect Iraqi sovereignty there must be an army to defend Iraq for the next 10 years," he said.

"But on the other hand, does Iraq accept the permanent existence of U.S. bases, for instance? Absolutely no. There is no Iraqi who would accept the existence of a foreign army in this country," he said. "America is America and Iraq is Iraq."

The United States now has about 155,000 troops in Iraq, formally operating under a U.N. Security Council mandate enacted after the U.S.-led invasion in 2003.

Iraq has asked the Security Council to extend the mandate for what it says will be a final year to the end of 2008, and conditions for U.S. troops to stay on beyond that date are to be negotiated in the next few months.

Violence has subsided after the United States dispatched 30,000 additional troops to Iraq this year, and Washington now says it will bring about 20,000 home by mid-2008. Troop levels for the second half of the year are to be decided in March.

A New Slogan

Jonathon Alter has an interesting column in the June 25th issue of Newsweek. The premise is finding a slogan which will explain Democrats' plan for withdrawal from Iraq "without looking like surrender monkeys."
Alter notes that Congressional Democrats want to get out of Iraq and get tough on Al Qaeda at the same time, but that message isn't getting through. He has a suggestion:

Now, Democrats should embrace what I like to call "pull and strike"—pull forces from the streets of Baghdad, but strike hard at Qaeda positions in the Sunni areas and in Afghanistan, mostly from air bases outside Iraq. In other words, saying no to the folly of intervening in a civil war between Iraqi Sunnis and Shiites isn't enough. Critics must also say yes—loudly—to calling in airstrikes on foreign fighters, who are increasingly being identified by friendly local sheiks determined to chase them out of their country.

The idea behind pull and strike isn't new, but its predecessor catchphrase—"strategic redeployment"—lacked a certain muscular quality and never caught on. Whatever it's called, the logic is clear. Pinpointing the whereabouts of Qaeda strongholds requires beefed-up intelligence, which has little to do with the large-scale presence of American ground forces. In fact, when we leave, and remove a major source of irritation, intelligence on the true terrorists will likely get better.

I like Alter's idea. To me, there is no question that we must remove our military from Iraq. We cannot win the civil war taking place there. But we also must deal with the terrorist threat from al Qaeda. Certainly the Iraqis no more want al Qaeda in country than they want the U.S. military.

Alter also notes that Democrats must deal with their forgeting to bring up Al Qaeda and bin Laden when they talk to voters. Every time one of Bush's minions mentions 9/11 Democrats must respond by reminding voters the man behind 9/11 remains at large because Bush stopped looking for him. Every time a Republican says war critics are forgetting what happened on 9/11 we need to respond by pointing out it is Republicans who have forgotten who was responsible for 9/11 and ask why bin Laden is still at large. Reporters need to be reminded of this, as well.

Alter's last two grafs are also notable:

To get a sense of how inept Democrats are at framing the debate, imagine if 9/11 had occurred under a Democratic president. You can bet that Republicans would go on the floor of Congress (and on cable TV) and say, "This is day 2,110 since 9/11 and the man who ordered the massacre is still at large." The next day, they would say it again, and again the day after that.

Whether Democrats call it pull and strike or something else, they've got to better communicate the two-pronged nature of their approach. This isn't about sloganeering. It's about clearly and memorably conveying the complex truth that leaving Iraq is not enough.

Keith Olberman reminds us each evening how many days have passed since "Mission Accomplished" in Iraq. It's time we all start reminding the American people how many days have passed "since 9/11 and the man who ordered the massacre is still at large."

Today is the 2,109th day since 9/11 and the man who ordered the massacre is still at large.

[cross posted at Watching Those We Chose]

Six Month Rewind

Six months ago Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki said:

his country's forces would be able to assume security command by June 2007 — which could allow the United States to start withdrawing its troops.

"I cannot answer on behalf of the U.S. administration but I can tell you that from our side our forces will be ready by June 2007," Maliki told ABC television after meeting President Bush on Thursday in Jordan.

To which President George Bush replied:

“We’ll be in Iraq until the job is complete, at the request of a sovereign government elected by the people.”

He said the United States — which now has about 140,000 troops in Iraq —will stay “to get the job done so long as the government wants us there.”

On May 8,

more than half of the members of Iraq's parliament rejected the continuing occupation of their country. 144 lawmakers signed onto a legislative petition calling on the United States to set a timetable for withdrawal, according to Nassar Al-Rubaie, a spokesman for the Al Sadr movement, the nationalist Shia group that sponsored the petition.

Maliki said Iraqi forces would be ready to assume security command. Bush said our troops would stay as long as the Iraqi government wants us there.

June '07 begins Friday. A majority of the Iraqi government wants us to leave.

When will US troops begin withdrawing?


[cross-posted at The Out of Iraq Bloggers Caucus]