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US advisor says troops should leave early

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A high-ranking US military adviser in Baghdad says that — even though Iraqi security forces are inept — American troops should declare victory and come home. The World’s Matthew Bell reports.

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KATY CLARK: I’m Katy Clark, and this is The World.  An American military commander in Baghdad says it’s time for US troops to declare victory in Iraq and start coming home.  The recommendation is part of a brutally blunt internal memo that was leaked to the news media.  Colonel Timothy Reese authored the memo, and his assessment of Iraqi security forces is so bleak, it raises troubling questions about what happens to Iraq after the US departs.  The World’s Matthew Bell reports.

MATTHEW BELL:  Here’s how the thinking in Colonel Reese’s memo goes.  The US has accomplished its basic mission, to stand up an Iraqi government and military that can deal with the greatest threats to peace and security in Iraq.  They come from Al Qaeda, the Baathist hold-outs and the violent Shia extremist groups who’ve tried to topple the Iraqi government.  Therefore, instead of waiting until the end of 2011, Reese writes, the US military should end combat operations now and pull out American forces by the end of next summer.  That’s 15 months ahead of schedule.  The most unvarnished parts of this 5-page memo describe Iraq’s government and security forces as corrupt, inept, and lazy.  The memo suggests US military commanders stop heaping praise on Iraq’s security forces and instead, admit that they are untrustworthy and incapable of changing in the current environment.

TOM RICKS:  What you see in this memo is not very different from what you see in conversation with officers in the mess hall behind the palace in the green zone, what guys think about these issues.

BELL:  Tom Ricks has written two books about the Iraq war and says he’s been hearing the same complaints from US military commanders about Iraq security forces for years.

RICKS:  What the memo begs though, is the question, “What happens after we leave?”  And the answer is, “No one knows.”  But there is the significant chance of Civil War breaking out, a three-way war breaking out between Sunni, Shiites and Kurds, and even a regional war breaking out.

BELL:  Even now, Ricks says the Kurds and the Shiite-dominated government in Baghdad are facing off.  Turkey is expanding its influence in northern Iraq.  Iran has already extended its influence over the country, and the US hasn’t really started leaving yet.

RICKS:  The fact of the matter is we have not had a large effect on the Iraqi armed forces.  And the lessons in which we have there, the more they’re going to revert to the old ways of Saddam.  And the moral problem that I have with that is we created this force.  But it’s a force that while it’s going to be wearing US-style uniforms and talking in US terms, it’s increasingly going to be acting in Saddam-like ways.

BELL:  But retired Army General Jack Keane, a key advocate for the “surge” in Iraq, says it’s important not to make too much of the conclusions in this single memo from a single military commander.

JACK KEANE:  The Iraqi security forces are not the United States military, and no one would suggest they are.  They’ve always had problems associated with it, and some of those problems will be resonating in that force 20 years from now.  I mean, the issue is do they have the wherewithal to protect their people after we’re gone?  And in the judgment of the leaders, you know, who were asked to make that assessment, the answer is “yes”.

BELL:  Keane says the same recommendation to declare victory and come home was made during the Vietnam War.  It’s only natural, he says, once a timetable for withdrawal is set by the political leaders, some US military commanders will ask, “Why not move up the deadline and save American lives if possible?”  Retired Army Colonel Pete Mansoor says Col. Reese is an intelligent military commander who knows the region well.  But he says Reese’s voice is one among many, and the memo he’s written is a snapshot in time.

PETE MANSOOR:  I think it’s too early to say that the Iraqi forces are beyond hope, beyond assistance.  Iraq’s government has decided to not be a long-term partner with the United States and therefore would need to leave.  I just think it’s too early to make that call.

BELL:  Another retired Army officer who got frustrated himself working closely with Iraqi security forces is John Nagl. Nagl was encouraged when Iraq’s Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki came to Washington this month and appeared to suggest that he’d be willing to extend the deadline for US withdrawal beyond December 2011.

JOHN NAGL:  It takes a long time to build security forces that are responsible to the democratically elected governments that are fully capable of maintaining security and stability.  Precipitant withdrawal puts at risk the gains of the past several years, which we purchased at an enormously high price and risks giving Al Qaeda and Iraq more breathing space, something we definitely don’t want to do, as well as providing an opening for other countries in the region to exert more of their influence.  That’s something else we very strongly don’t want to have happen.

BELL:  But that’s something the US will have little control over when it does finally leave Iraq.  For The World, I’m Matthew Bell.

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