Training Iraqi Troops No Longer Top Priority
Nancy A. Youssef writes for McClatchy that “military planners have abandoned the idea that standing up Iraqi troops will enable American soldiers to start coming home soon and now believe that U.S. troops will have to defeat the insurgents and secure control of troubled provinces.”
Training Iraqi troops, which had been the cornerstone of the Bush administration’s Iraq policy since 2005, has dropped in priority, officials in Baghdad and Washington said.
No change has been announced, and a Pentagon spokesman, Col. Gary Keck, said training Iraqis remains important. “We are just adding another leg to our mission,” Keck said, referring to the greater U.S. role in establishing security that new troops arriving in Iraq will undertake.
But evidence has been building for months that training Iraqi troops is no longer the focus of U.S. policy. Pentagon officials said they know of no new training resources that have been included in U.S. plans to dispatch 28,000 additional troops to Iraq. The officials spoke only on the condition of anonymity because they aren’t authorized to discuss the policy shift publicly. Defense Secretary Robert Gates made no public mention of training Iraqi troops on Thursday during a visit to Iraq.
More:
U.S. officials don’t say that the training formula – championed by Gen. John Abizaid when he was the commander of U.S. forces in the Middle East and by Gen. George Casey when he was the top U.S. general in Iraq – was doomed from the start. But they said that rising sectarian violence and the inability of Prime Minister Nouri al Maliki to unite the country changed the conditions. They say they now must establish security while training Iraqi forces because ultimately, “they are our ticket out of Iraq,” as one senior Pentagon official put it.
Casey’s “mandate was transition. General Petraeus’ mandate is security. It is a change based on conditions. Certain conditions have to be met for the transition to be successful. Security is part of that. And General Petraeus recognizes that,” said Brig. Gen. Dana Pittard, commander of the Iraq Assistance Group in charge of supporting trained Iraqi forces…
In nearly every area where Iraqi forces were given control, the security situation rapidly deteriorated. The exceptions were areas dominated largely by one sect and policed by members of that sect.
This is a very significant change. The original ‘plan’ (and I use this word loosely) was to train Iraqis, those Iraqis, then, had to slowly take over from the U.S. so that the U.S. could withdraw more and more of its forces. This new tactic, however, means that there can be no withdrawal of U.S. troops (in the short and middle-long run). The military – and the White House – seem to agree that the Iraqi forces cannot provide security.
It will be interesting to see whether Gates will say anything about this change publicly voluntarily, or whether the media have to (just about) force him to provide some additional information. If the SecDef would still have been Rumsfeld, there would be no doubt in my mind that nothing would be admitted, nothing would be explained… Gates, however, is quite a different type of person, politician and SecDef.
An, in my opinion, far better one (which is not difficult to do considering that Rumsfeld did an absolutely horrendous job).
H/t Whiskey Fire
41 Responses to “Training Iraqi Troops No Longer Top Priority”
Astonishing. Simply astonishing.
Can we say Iraq is completely failed now? Can we get out of there now? Maybe Mission accomplished now? Fubar?
For craps sake lets call it a damn day, this mess has imploded about as good as Alberto did on the stand.
Shaun: it’s also fascinating, astonishing and noteworthy, that most of the media (and blogs) don’t seem to pay a lot of attention to this story / change. This is, it seems to me, quite big news. This has to be analyzed by pros.
[...] Continue reading this. [...]
As republican senator Coburn said yesterday, it doesn’t matter what side of the ailse you come from, if you care about your country at all you need to start seriously thinking about getting rid of these guys.
Michael:
Score another big one for McClathchey, which like Knight Ridder before it, is running circles around the NYT and WaPo on what’s really going on it Iraq.
And then there’s this story from Mark Tran in The Guardian:
The failure is coming about because of 3 reasons.
The Democrats forcing the USA to leave by 2008.
The Infiltration of the army by insurgents which is causing serious problems for them deploying with no time left to weed them out because of the Democrats plan.
The US shifting policy in light of the Democrats plan to kill Insurgents, find caches of arms and ammo and to do as much harm to the terrorist infrastructure as possible.
Even Al Sadr understands this. He Fled Iraq for Iran. Told his followers to go underground.
Pulled out of the government and is patiently waiting for the USA to leave. So that he and his army can take over Iraq and Voilla you have another Dictator in Iraq.
Those right now frantically killing everything in sight is Sunni insurgents who understand their days are now numbered because of the USA pull out.
I guess you guys don’t understand that training troops in American tactics is no longer intelligent given the fact the Democrats want us out of Iraq before the job is done. The day we leave the country will fall. The trained Iraqi forces will join up with Al Sadr and form the backbone of his new Dictatorship.
Continuing to train the Iraqis in light of the Democrats forcing us out of Iraq would not only be an error, it would be mind numbingly stupid.
It’s hard to believe that our military doesn’t realize they are creating a ghetto like the Warsaw ghetto of WWII by building these walls. When the Americans leave, there is going to be bloodshed on an even larger scale than we are seeing now, and it matters not when we leave from that standpoint. There will definitely be ethnic cleansing in many parts of Iraq. What a mess Bush has created.
I was rather nervous when the Kansas City Star went up for sale along with other papers owned by Knight Ridder. But McClatchy impresses me greatly.
I would have more respect for the get out now crowd, if they were discussing what to do with the millions of refugees and what to do about the total collapse of Iraq.
Even the 2007 DoD Supplemental spending bill stated that the U.S. would maintain an embassay and leave training and support units in Iraq to support the Iraqi military.
Why can’t one mjaor Democratic leader say lets get out now and not leave one American in Iraq because the situation is beyond solution? Instead the Democratic leaders want to set time lines drag out the situation and hedge the political stances.
Nice try to put the political blame on the Democrats for this disaster, Nobody. In case you hadn’t noticed, this war is now in its fifth year and has been run from the beginning by Republicans. If you haven’t noticed, you are one of only a handful of people left in America that doesn’t realize this fact.
Trying to pin this fiasco on the Democrats isn’t working and it isn’t going to work. The American people know very clearly, as they demonstrated in November, exactly to whom this one belongs. It is Republicans who dreamed up, promoted, executed, borrowed the money and screwed up the war in Iraq. They own it.
The public realized quite a while back that this is a disaster and they never bought into your dumb “surge”, and they still don’t. If there’s on thing Americans hate, it is defeat. That is what they have been given by the Republicans. And they know it.
Superdestroyer it is and always will be because the Democrats do not have any conceivable idea of how to deal with foreign relations other then to apologize and appease.
They still think the Europeans would still like us if we only tried harder, not even realizing that the Europeans conspired years ago to formally favor Arabs at the expense of the USA and Israel. The relations we have left with Western Europe is based upon lip service and even that is changing.
It is specifically why the USA is seeking relations with emerging Economically viable Eastern European nations who passionately desire strong ties with the United States. Western Europe and the Middle east only pay lip service to the USA because of a concerted effort to Force the USSR and the USA to face off, spend trillions while Europe basked in the benefits of having a free reign in the Middle east.
Pug nice try. I did not blame the war on democrats. Even though they voted to attack Iraq. But we all know they were just kidding. I blamed the reason we have shifted training Iraqis on the Democrats plan to leave by 2008. In your haste to continue to attack Bush over and over Im sure you did not even understand what I posted.
Let me repeat. Democrats voted for us to enter Iraq. Democrats stood shoulder to shoulder with the president and attack Iraq. The country at the time was 80 percent in favor of Kicking Iraqs butt.
Nobody I believe Truman and his cabinet came up with the Marshall plan and containment of communism. Nixon and Kissinger “gave away the bank” to achieve “peace with honor” in Vietnam. As someone else said, the Messinpotamia is all W doing, you can’t blame Clinton and the Democrats. I believe the former SecofDef(Colin Powell) was marginalized and ignored by Rummy and Cheney. If we went in under the Powell Doctrine, Iraq would be different today. It’s the REPUBLICAN administration that is to blame. Hillary didn’t give Bremer a medal.
Did Komrad Pelosi make this statement. W is now giving up on his own policy. It’s a bigger flip-flop than even anything Kerry has said or done. The Iraqis aren’t standing up, their runnibg away from their own defence.
> If we went in under the
> Powell Doctrine, Iraq
> would be different today.
Note that what has been happening in Iraq (with the exception of al-Qaeda, which was not an issue back in 1990) was exactly what was feared at the time and was why we did not remove Hussein then.
In defense of Nobody I’ll remind everyone that all but a fringe believed Hussein was a threat, and even if they were not delighted at the prospect, they saw this war as a dirty job that needed to be done, if not now, then later, and supported the war. (It wasn’t just the WMDs, don’t forget; Iraq was also working on missiles and could threaten again to attack Kuwait or other neighbors, which it did threaten to do before this recent war, in fact, even if it was posturing only.)
It’s what happened after the war that has (normal) people disappointed. And if we do leave, Iraq will promptly fall, and Iran has every stake in having Sadr rule as much of Iraq as possible.
Nobody, wow, where to begin?
The failure is coming about because of 3 reasons.
The Democrats forcing the USA to leave by 2008.
Were that this was so, however, given that Democrats won’t take over the presidency until 2009, late 2009, early 2010 looks like the earliest any real pullback will happen.
The Infiltration of the army by insurgents which is causing serious problems for them deploying with no time left to weed them out because of the Democrats plan.
The army isn’t being infiltrated by “insurgents”, it is entirely composed of shi’ite and kurdish partisans whose allegience is, and has always been to their own tribes. The only way to “weed them out” would be to disband the entire Iraqi Security Force.
The US shifting policy in light of the Democrats plan to kill Insurgents, find caches of arms and ammo and to do as much harm to the terrorist infrastructure as possible.
What a remarkable idea: killing insurgents, locating arms caches, and disrupting their infrastructure. If Dems were actually responsible for these totally sensible changes to strategy I’d applaud. It strikes me though that SecDef Gates is just moving towards a more reality-based strategy than was the case with his predessecor.
Even Al Sadr understands this. He Fled Iraq for Iran. Told his followers to go underground.
Pulled out of the government and is patiently waiting for the USA to leave. So that he and his army can take over Iraq and Voilla you have another Dictator in Iraq.
Entirely sensible of him. Why waste his followers’ lives in this civil war when he can get the US to fight it for him?
Those right now frantically killing everything in sight is Sunni insurgents who understand their days are now numbered because of the USA pull out.
Or rather because, with their Shi’ite counteerparts lying low, the Sunni’s are operating with a freer hand.
I guess you guys don’t understand that training troops in American tactics is no longer intelligent given the fact the Democrats want us out of Iraq before the job is done. The day we leave the country will fall. The trained Iraqi forces will join up with Al Sadr and form the backbone of his new Dictatorship.
Given that training the ISF only provides partisans with US trainig (see above), the only job remaining to be done is the defeat of the sunni elements of this civil war. Democrats are far from the only Americans who believe this not to be worth the cost in American blood and gold.
The day we leave is the day that the ISF will have to make its inevitable choice between tribal loyalty and their government paychecks. Nobody denies it may well be bloody.
Continuing to train the Iraqis in light of the Democrats forcing us out of Iraq would not only be an error, it would be mind numbingly stupid.
Which is why I’m amazed it’s taking place.
DLS Bush 41 didn’t feel this way back in 1991. The Scud missiles proved ineffective in the first Gulf War, they weren’t anymore of a threat 12 years later. The guidance system is primitive. The aluminum tubes hyped as components of WMD were for short range missiles. Even Jeanne Kirkpatrick is coming out with a book critical of W folly. The grandmother of the neocons is dumping on their folly from the grave.
Democrats are far from the only Americans who believe this not to be worth the cost in American blood and gold.
What it always boils down to for the left. No future looking. No strategy other then we can best spend our dollars growing medical marijuana.
Sadr is a maverick and populist along the lines of Huey Long. I don’t think even the Iranians can control him or know ehat he’s really up to. Dawa and Sciri are under more influence by Iran. al-Hakim is the new Shia Whitehouse hope, but his ties to Iran are significant. Even our allies in the north, the Kurds, invited the Iranians to Irbil and were upset when we raided the “consulate”.
Nobody I believe Truman and his cabinet came up with the Marshall plan and containment of communism.
Yes and what does that have to do with the Middle east and the fact that Western Europe Abandoned the USA’s efforts in the middle east and sided with the Arabs in opposition to Israel and the USA?
As someone else said, the Messinpotamia is all W doing,
God the left is clueless when it comes to foreign affairs and what has really gone on in the last 60 years in the middle east.
I totally understand now why the left is so opposed to this war. I honestly believe its the liberal politically correct book burning that has occurred in our schools in the last 20 years.
The actual truth has been replaced with convenience. Distortions has become fact and fact has become lost to alternate forms of reality.
Where to Begin Kang.
“To the extent we are losing the American public, we were losing” in the transition approach, said a senior military commander in Washington.
Military officials say there’s no doubt that the November U.S. elections, which gave Democrats control of both houses of Congress, helped push training down the priority list. The elections, they said, made it clear that voters didn’t have the patience to wait for Iraqis to take the lead.
But U.S. forces complained that the Iraqi forces weren’t getting the support from their government and that Iraqi military commanders, many who worked under Saddam Hussein, weren’t as willing to embrace their tactics. Among everyday Iraqis, some said they didn’t trust their forces, saying they were sectarian and easily susceptible to corruption.
I guess you disagree with the article too because the above are quotes from the article in which I was summarizing for everyone. Someone sympathic to your cause says it and its okay. I summarize it (A known Foaming at the mouth Neocon) And its heresy.
Nobody – On another comment post I quoted a comment by Eisenhower on the folly of pre-emptive war in regards to China and Taiwan/Formosa. The Truman comments are an example of a multi faceted approach to foreign policy against an enemy(USSR) that worked with the fall of the USSR block during Bush 41. The Bush Doctrine and associated policies are radical departures from Truman, Eisenhower and Nixon. Please stop attacking te strawnman Liberals for W’s failed foregeign policies in the ME. I doubt Truman or Eisenhower would have taken us down this path.
Even Scowcroft, Poppie Bush’s security adviser, calls out the Bush 43 ME policies as a failure. Is Scowcroft a raving Liberal. I believe Bill Buckley is even critical of W, is he another raving Liberal. Many paleoconservatives have been against the war from the start, more raving Liberals?
“The war in Iraq isn’t over yet, but — surge or no surge — the United States has already lost. That’s the grim consensus of a panel of experts assembled by Rolling Stone to assess the future of Iraq. “Even if we had a million men to go in, it’s too late now,” says retired four-star Gen. Tony McPeak, who served on the Joint Chiefs of Staff during the Gulf War. “Humpty Dumpty can’t be put back together again.”
McPeak also added: “It’s not a question of whether we’re going to leave Iraq — it’s a question of when.”
But I’m guessing Nobody has 9 stars on his epilet.
Nobody, you miss the implications of the full statement, to wit,
The elections, they said, made it clear that voters didn’t have the patience to wait for Iraqis to take the lead.
The issue, then, isn’t Democratic control of congress, but the public sentiment that control represents.
Democrats, therefore, are not causing the strategy change, though as I said, I’d have no problem were that true. Strategy is being changed because the American public clearly desires it to be so. that’s what happens in a democracy.
I also note that, Among everyday Iraqis, some said they didn’t trust their forces, saying they were sectarian and easily susceptible to corruption. only re-inforces my assertion about the partisan nature of the ISF.
My disagreement isn’t with the article, but with your mischaracterization of its contents.
There are a lot of us who are critical of George Bush. There are many on the right who are critical of Bush’s approach to the war on terror. That is ALWAYS going to be the case.
To point to a few Conservatives and say they are opposed to the war is about as helpful as pointing to Democrats who were critical of Clinton or Jimmy Carter and say that proves their policies are wrong. Many on the left were opposed to going into Somalia but we did. Going into Bosnia and we did. Going in as peace keepers but we did. Many on the left were demanding Carter attack Iran and he didnt.
This is the same argument you make for the Intelligence. Some people came forward and said the intell was wrong so that means Bush Lied. Yet country after country told us their intell suggests he had wmds. Our own intell suggests they did. But because a few were critical of it then that proves your point?
Because Bill Buckley, Brent Scowcroft and others have been critical is a slam dunk? If that were the case politics would get nothing done, because you never do anything by absolute consensus.
As for comparing Attacking China vs. Attacking Afghanistan or Iraq. The mandate was there. Lie about it, deny it, Scream we were duped. Whatever. The mandate was there from not only the American people but a 15-0 vote in the UN Security council along with a whole bunch of other Resolutions.
Preemptive my anus canal. The world demanded it after 911. Hesitantly to be sure, but never the less. A coalition larger then was used in the first gulf war was assembled and the war was begun.
Now because it did not go smooth its cut and run and blame the neocons.
Davebo gave us an interesting statement from McPeak, if anyone is interested in reading more here’s a link.
http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/story/13710030/leaving_iraq_the_grim_truth/print
The issue, then, isn’t Democratic control of congress, but the public sentiment that control represents.
Well thats a curious deflection. Lets see there are Democrats and Republicans. The voters voted in the Democrats and now the Democrats are trying to force us out of Iraq. But its not the Democrats fault its the voters fault.
So now the lefts new plan is to either blame the Republicans, Neocons or the Voters for anything that goes wrong in Iraq?
Gosh those Democrats are saints. I must admit.
I read the article and I pretty much agree with their assessments. I think they are exactly accurate. It will deteriorate into a mindless killing field.
Surprised. You shouldnt be if you actually read what I have posted here for the last few weeks.
Im opposed to the mindless lies of the left and their ill conceived notion that the war will be over if we just come home.
It is only beginning.
Im sorry while the left represents much of the antiwar their are people on the right and the middle as well opposed to the war.
I should have said Im opposed to the ANTIWAR not the left. This time my apologies to the left.
Nobody then stop using the blanket attacks on the Left, use antiwar in the future. The Libertarians, like Ron Paul and Leon Hadar, have been antiwar from day one, more examples of (not) raving Liberals. I will agree that Kucinich is a raving Liberal, but the voters in Cleveland seem to like him.
nobody, I appreciate your sentiments, but “our” problem is we “all” would be better served by the where do we go from here discussions rather than the who did what to whom and when retrospectives. If you link into the past, you then have to drag Bush’s terrible execution strategy along as an easy (and distracting) target.
I’d rather see you drag the best and brightest from the anti-”War against Terrorism” camp into the center ring and get them to “give us the plan from here”….which you have correctly pointed out several times before….seems to be lacking.
You will then be debating from at least an even standpoint, if not an advantaged standpoint.
Im opposed to the mindless lies of the left and their ill conceived notion that the war will be over if we just come home.
It will be over for us. And save a cool 2.8 billion or so a week and 10 US kids dead.
I guess you’d prefer to continue the carnage and costs but for the life of me I can’t figure out why.
I’ve been asking over and over what is the plan. What plan do the democrats have on the war on terror.
No one knows.
No one cares.
Define “fringe” for us?
http://www.usatoday.com/news/world/iraq/2003-03-16-poll-iraq_x.htm
Note the date of that poll. In what world does 47% represent “all but a fringe”?
I thought we were discussing the war in Iraq? But if we must sway off topic.
Each of the democrats running in the primary offer their plans to combat terror. Many in great detail.
You might try their campaign websites, or even Google.
The poll suggests that Americans’ patience is wearing thin. Nearly six in 10 say diplomatic efforts to win international support have taken too much time.
“I believe we went far enough with inspections,” says Leroy Hanson, 69, a retiree in Orange City, Fla. “The U.N. is being very weak and not holding up their end of it.”
Public attitudes toward France, Russia and Germany have eroded sharply. More than two in three Americans say France is being unreasonable in its opposition to a resolution that could lead to war. More than half say France is “stabbing the U.S. in the back.”
Polls said Bush lost both Elections too. Polls, Polls, Polls. Havent you folks figured out that polls are no longer that accurate.
A poll conducted by the Washington Post and ABC News found that 72% of Americans supported the Iraq War, despite finding no evidence of chemical or biological weapons.
A poll made by CBS found that 60% of Americans said the Iraq War was worth the blood and cost even if no WMD are ever found
May 2003
A Gallup poll made on behalf of CNN and the newspaper USA Today concluded that 79% of Americans thought the Iraq War was justified, with or without conclusive evidence of illegal weapons. 19% thought weapons were needed to justify the war.[1]
For every poll you roll out I can roll out my own polls.
But this is pointless. Everyone knows that France and Russia are opposed to the war and were from day one.
Square that with statements by Vladimir Putin that Russia is a Muslim Country and France being in bed with the middle east since the 60′s and its not hard to conclude that both France and Russia would allow terrorists to attack the United States at will while actively working to prevent the USA from exerting any more influence in the region then they already had.
They would never have allowed us another resolution. Never. That would have been like demanding Saddam Hussein sign a confession.
I do not at all believe that the antiwar consists only of the Fringe. I believe only those most vocal. Those screaming the loudest, those making up lies to fuel their passionate hate are the fringe.
Here is your fringe 19% thought weapons were needed to justify the war.[1]
The rest of those antiwar chaps are reasonable people who just oppose war. I have no problems with them. Its the incessant lying or distortions of the truth and name calling I oppose. Always have and always will.
Nobody,
Could you provide links to those polls? We were referring to prewar sentiment.
Sorry, Davebo, been there, done that……both a couple of days ago when I posted on it and again today.
Iraq- one paragraph from each Clinton and Obama which, at little risk of oversummarizing, is…….need timetable and talk.
Terrorism-Obama (authored Lugar-Obama initiative back in ’05)
Clinton-nothing
Gee, I guess I might as well declare my candidacy as well!
War in Iraq <> War on Terror(sic)
[...] – Training more Iraqi troops to fight is no longer a priority – and fewer priorities make success more achieveable! [...]