US must abandon Iraqi cities or face nightmare scenario, say experts (Brookings Inst.)

[sabra]

http://news.independent.co.uk/world/middle_east/article2198418.ece

US must abandon Iraqi cities or face nightmare scenario, say experts

The US must draw up plans to deal with an all-out Iraqi civil war that would kill hundreds of thousands, create millions of refugees, and could spill over into a regional catastrophe, disrupting oil supplies and setting up a direct confrontation between Washington and Iran.

This is the central recommendation of a study by the Brookings Institution here, based on the assumption that President Bush's last-ditch troop increase fails to stabilise the country - but also on the reality that Washington cannot simply walk away from the growing disaster unleashed by the 2003 invasion.

Even the US staying to try to contain the fighting, said Kenneth Pollack, one of the report's authors, "would consign Iraqis to a terrible fate. Even if it works, we will have failed to provide the Iraqis with the better future we promised." But it was the "least bad option" open to the US to protect its national interests in the event of full-scale civil war.

US troops, says the study, should withdraw from Iraqi cities. This was "the only rational course of action, horrific though it will be", as America refocused its efforts from preventing civil war to containing its effects.

[bemildred]

1. The flaw here is the statement that we cannot walk away.

The current leadership of our government cannot walk away, but the staying will only make it worse for the US, there has been no glimmering of any ability to make things better since we invaded, and it will continue to get worse until we leave, completely leave. But as long as we stay and pretend that something can be done, the current leadership has some excuse to continue to cling to power.

[CJCRANE]

2. "...and setting up a direct confrontation between Washington and Iran."

But that's exactly what the neocons want.

[endarkenment]

3. That is a good start, then abandon the countryside too.

In fact, just pack up them trucks and head on down the highway we came in on, right back to Kuwait, and then get the heck out of Kuwait too.

Our age of empire is over, we just haven't figured it out yet.

[The Stranger]

4. Actually, wasn't this the Neocon plan all along -- disintegrate Iraq as a state?

[ohio2007]

5. That is my talking point they used;

....US troops, says the study, should withdraw from Iraqi cities.
...

ANd the troops need to melt away into the deserts,getting out of the urban Iraqi faces.

[underpants]

6. Murtha has been saying this for how long now?

Oh that's right so has the brass in the Pentagon, through Murtha.

[HuffleClaw]

7. that has been their plan from the beginning

they aren't building those 'superbases' to guard the oil fields for fun.

[daleo]

8. "Abandon ship!"

"Leave the people but get those oil drums into the lifeboats."