Is US finally ready to withdraw troops from Iraq?

The Washington Post reports that, even as the Pentagon cautioned Americans not to read too much into the decision, the move may signal the beginning of a broader withdrawal of US troops in Iraq in the second half of 2006.

"It's a very narrow decision just to hold this unit for now," said Pentagon spokesman Bryan Whitman, adding that it is likely the brigade will still deploy "somewhere down the road." Whitman said: "It's my understanding that it will deploy at some time. They are trained; they're equipped and ready to go."

Instead, the decision to postpone the deployment was intended to give more time and flexibility to US commanders in Iraq, led by Army Gen. George W. Casey Jr., while they and Iraqi leaders assess the insurgency and sectarian violence amid the formation of a new Iraqi government.

Yet there is still broad disagreement over the timing of any withdrawal and whether US-trained Iraqi soldiers and police are ready to take up the ongoing fight against insurgents and foreign terrorists. In a recent interview on The Pentagon Channel, the news station of the US Armed Forces, Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld said that Iraqi soldiers and police now number 250,000 and will soon reach 325,000. He also said that the US is handing over larger chunks of territory to the control of the Iraqis, which means the US should be able to start withdrawing its forces, probably after the new Iraqi government is formed at the end of May.

Knight Ridder reports that retired Army Gen. Barry McCaffrey, a very vocal critic of the war in Iraq, recently returned from a trip to the country and had a mixed response to what he saw there. He found that Iraqi units were " real, growing and willing to fight," but that they needed "two to five more years of US partnership and combat backup" before they could be expected to fight entirely without any US or coalition assistance.

The Washington Times reports that Gen. MacCaffrey also said a troop drawdown is still a good idea because of concerns that "an increase in troops will leave the military unable to handle other trouble spots."

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In a memo he wrote for colleagues at West Point, the Times also reports, Gen. McCaffrey said another problem is that the Iraqi units are " very badly equipped with only a few light vehicles, small arms, most with body armor and one or two uniforms. They have almost no mortars, heavy machine guns, decent communications equipment, artillery, armor, or [air force] transport, helicopter and strike support."

In a background analysis for the non-partisan Council on Foreign Relations, Lionel Beehner writes that the determining factor in troop withdrawal may have less to do with the situation in Iraq and more to do with the situation in the US.

At the moment, the White House says no plan is in place to draw down its forces until military officials on the ground in Iraq say the security situation improves and US troops are unneeded. But some experts say the decision to draw down forces will be tied more to the United States' upcoming congressional elections than to the security situation in Iraq. "I don't believe for a second that if there's an announcement for troops withdrawals it will be driven by the generals' assessments of progress," says Andrew Bacevich, a retired US Army colonel and professor of international relations at Boston University. "The president needs to show success to the American people, and the definition of success at this point is reducing our exposure over there."

"We failed [in Vietnam] because in the end, America defeated itself and abandoned its military and political objectives," Kissinger said at a daylong conference in Philadelphia. Whatever one's view of the decision to enter Iraq or how the military campaign has been handled, Kissinger continued, a withdrawal of US troops now would strengthen the voice of Muslim extremists worldwide.

"If when we go we leave nothing behind but a failed state and chaos, the consequences will be disastrous - for the region, for America's position in the world and for peace in the world," Kissinger said. He specifically warned that neighboring countries, including Iran and Turkey, would seek to extend their influence into Iraq "to fill the vacuum" of departing US troops.

"They were waiting for two things to happen," he said. "The standing up of a minimally competent Iraqi security force, which they've done, and the formation of a national government, which is happening. After that, in the main, our job is over."

Iraq will continue to face unrest, Goure predicted. "This is about as good as it's going to get," he said. "The Iraqis are in for a long civil war. ... It's going to be a long, tough war for the Iraqis, but it's theirs."

But a recent editorial in The Palm Beach Post after a surprise visit to Iraq by Rumsfeld and Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, however, asked "How can the Bush administration announce a significant troop withdrawal from Iraq if that country isn't safe enough for members of the Bush administration to announce in advance that they're going to Iraq?"

Finally, USA Today reported Monday on how sailors and airmen are being asked to fill roles in Iraq normally occupied by Army soldiers. About 8,000 sailors are currently serving in Iraq and Afghanistan, and that number may go as high as 12,000 this year. Several experts say this is not necessary a good sign. Frederick Kagan, a military historian at the conservative American Enterprise Institute, says that asking sailors and airmen to do jobs that normally well-trained soldiers perform, especially in a combat area, is "what you do only when you're desperate."

Also...
• The wrong spy (Los Angeles Times)
• Bush setting up attack on Iran (truthout.org)
• Pentagon is winner over CIA (New York Sun)
• Quartet to hold key talks on fate of its Mideast peacemaking role (Ha'aretz, Israel)
• Feedback appreciated. E-mail Tom Regan .