US military to defy Iraqi pact by declaring remaining troops are for 'support' rather than 'combat'

[bigtree]

By Gareth Porter

WASHINGTON - United States military leaders and Pentagon officials have made it clear through public statements and deliberately leaked stories in recent weeks that they plan to violate a central provision of the US-Iraq withdrawal agreement requiring the complete pullout of all US combat troops from Iraqi cities by mid-2009 by reclassifying combat troops as support troops.

The scheme to engage in chicanery in labeling US troops represents both open defiance of an agreement which the US military has never accepted and a way of blocking president-elect Barack Obama's proposed plan for withdrawal of all US combat troops from Iraq within 16 months of his taking office.

By redesignating tens of thousands of combat troops as support troops, those officials apparently hope to make it difficult, if not impossible, for Obama to insist on getting all combat troops of the country by mid-2010.

General David Petraeus, now commander of CENTCOM, and General Ray Odierno, the top US commander in Iraq, who opposed Obama's 16-month withdrawal plan during the election campaign, have drawn up their own alternative plan rejecting that timeline, as the New York Times reported on Thursday. That plan was communicated to Obama in general terms by Secretary of Defense Robert Gates and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Admiral Mike Mullen when he met with his national security team in Chicago on December 15, according to the Times.

The determination of the military leadership to ignore the US-Iraq Status of Forces Agreement (SOFA) and to pressure Obama on his withdrawal policy was clear from remarks made by Mullen in a news conference on November 17 - after US ambassador Ryan Crocker had signed the agreement in Baghdad.

Mullen declared he considered it "important" that withdrawal of US forces from Iraq "be conditions-based". That position directly contradicted the terms of the agreement, and Mullen was asked whether the agreement required all US troops to leave Iraq by the end of 2011, regardless of the security conditions. He answered "Yes," but then added, "Three years is a long time. Conditions could change in that period of time ... "


read: http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Middle_East/JL20Ak01.html

[jody]

1. BS, Obama will be Commander in Chief & he can fire those who won't obey. The problem will be Obama's

and his alone.

[bigtree]

2. Obama, himself, has defended 'protecting interests' and fighting 'terror' in Iraq

. . . and has recently indicated that he's still seriously considering his campaign promise to leave a 'residual' force in Iraq for those purposes.

On MTP on the 7th, Obama reaffirmed his promise to move “as quickly as we can do to maintain stability in Iraq, maintain the safety of U.S. troops, to provide a mechanism so that Iraq can start taking more responsibility as a sovereign responsibility for its own safety and security, ensuring that you don't see any resurgence of terrorism in Iraq that could threaten our interests.”

What, exactly, are our 'interests' in Iraq which are 'threatened?' Is the preservation of the Maliki government, at all costs, behind the protection of our military really in our 'interest?'

If we keep framing an exit from Iraq in terms of the security of the privileged regime there we'll never get the clean break from there that most of us expect. The estimates from the transition team general Obama has shadowing Defense Chief Gates says that the number remaining could be as many as 50,000 troops.

Why should anti-occupation advocates be satisfied with the prospect of a significant contingent of our soldiers remaining in Iraq to fight "terrorism" and "preserve stability?"

[jody]

3. Obama will be responsible for what DoD leaders do and don't do just as is Bush. n/t

[bigtree]

4. Why dither around these clear obstacles who are doing little more than promoting the Bush doctrine

This is a dangerous waste of time dealing around these two-faced militarists. I'm disgusted that we still have to argue their inane, warmongering down.

Now I outlined a CLEAR position taken by OBAMA in which he apparently intends to keep a sizable contingent in Iraq for in dubious pursuit of the Bushite 'war on terror' and for the defense of Bush's junta in their protected green zone.

Is he going to talk himself down from that position? Right now it looks like he's inclined to agree with their ploy to subvert the withdrawal agreement which is a far sight short of the clear shift away from Bush's occupation that he promised.

[jody]

5. How can anyone know what Obama will do? IMO he will leave many troops in Iraq, assign more to

Afghanistan, and our casualty numbers will continue to rise.

Of course that is just my opinion and Obama could easily make good on his promise to bring our troops home.

[gratuitous]

6. A poor Iraqi was sitting with his wife in their small house

There was a knock at the door, and almost before the Iraqi could open it, a large, heavily-armed man brushed him aside, and said, “Can I come in?” Before either the man or his wife could say anything, the heavily-armed man sat down at their table and proceeded to make himself at home.

The man and his wife tried to continue their lives as before, even though the heavily-armed man often ate all the food and slept anywhere it pleased him. After some years, the heavily-armed man keeled over dead. The man and his wife looked at each other over the prone body, and proceeded to drag the heavily-armed man out of their house.

The couple left him in the gutter and the man said, “No, you can’t come in.”

[Tierra_y_Libertad]

7. Right. And, Nixon had a "plan" to end the war in Vietnam.

Now, the bigshots have a "plan" to end the wars in Iraq in Afghanistan. With predictable results.

[bigtree]

8. they're still hoping to 'win' something or the other

. . .so they can declare some 'victory' or success.

It would be enough for Obama to begin with a success in keeping his promise to end the thing.