| Written by Thomas R. Eddlem |
| Saturday, 22 October 2011 18:00 |
President Obama announced with much fanfare in an October 21 address to the nation that "as a candidate for President, I pledged to bring the war in Iraq to a responsible end.... Today, I can report that, as promised, the rest of our troops in Iraq will come home by the end of the year. After nearly nine years, America’s war in Iraq will be over."But Obama's own Deputy National Security Adviser Denis McDonough acknowledged in a press conference the same day that the withdrawal from Iraq was more due to demands from the Iraqi government than from Obama's commitment to keep his campaign promises. "The security agreements negotiated and signed in 2008 by the Bush administration stipulated this date ... as the end of the military presence. So that has been in law now for — or been enforced now for several years. So it’s difficult to rebut the proposition that this was a known date." In essence, Obama trumpeted a troop withdrawal that he had little choice but to follow.
Indeed, Obama was most reluctant to follow through on his campaign promise. The National Journal reported October 22 that "as recently as last week, the White House was trying to persuade the Iraqis to allow 2,000-3,000 troops to stay beyond the end of the year. Those efforts had never really gone anywhere; one senior U.S. military official told National Journal last weekend that they were stuck at 'first base' because of Iraqi reluctance to hold substantive talks." According to the National Journal, the sticking point was that U.S. troops retain diplomatic immunity while in Iraq, a license the Maliki regime was unwilling to grant. McDonough admitted the administration did discuss immunity as an issue in deliberations on keeping troops in Iraq.
Moreover, the Obama administration found an end-run around the Iraqi troop ban. Asked if the ongoing guerrilla war in Iraq is sustainable by the divided Iraqi government, McDonough replied that the U.S. State Department will retain a "civilian" military ground force in Iraq. "I think it’s around 4,000 to 5,000 security contractors in various forms of security, be that for site security — remember we have at least three diplomatic posts. We have a consulate down in Basra, we have a consulate up in Erbil and then we have the embassy in Baghdad. Then, obviously, we’re going to have our people driving around and everything else."
McDonough noted that the war in Iraq will now be managed by the State Department through the Office of Security Cooperation-Iraq (OSC-I): "The Office of Security Cooperation in Iraq will have a capacity to train Iraqis on the new kinds of weapons and weapons systems that the Iraqis are going to buy, including, importantly, like the F-16s that they just purchased just about a month ago." While it's unclear what role a fixed-wing fighter aircraft will have in fighting an Iraqi guerrilla insurgency marked by improvised explosive devices, it is clear that McDonough only described part of the force to be left behind. The Washington Post noted that State Department logistical staff (including the 5,000 military contractors) will total "an estimated 16,000 civilians under the American ambassador — the size of an Army division."... read more>>
