As They Stand Up We’ll Hang Onto Their Elbows
US troop strength in Iraq hits 150,000 again. I went looking for the archived entry where I said something like We had about 140,000 troops in Iraq at the end of 2003, 2004 and 2005, and we’ll have about 140,000 troops at the end of 2006 no matter what they tell you they’re hoping, but I couldn’t find it. I may have said 150K. It’s in there somewhere.
Comment by Jennifer —
October 31, 2006 @ 9:08 am
The size, expense and permanency of the military bases we’re building over there belies the notion that we plan to leave anytime soon.
Comment by nd —
October 31, 2006 @ 10:26 am
Paragraph starting “You love me, or should…”
Comment by Jim Henley —
October 31, 2006 @ 11:01 am
nd: Ah. Thank you!
Jen: I think you’re right as far as it goes about how we don’t plan to leave. I’m not convinced that Rumsfeld et al envision a continuing 140K troop-strength, though. I think the idea is to get down to 30-40K permanently in-theater, guarding installations that are either massive honking airbases from which the US can threaten Iran, Syria and whomever else the government decides to threaten, or amped-up supply depots that can be reinforced quickly whenever the government decides to invade one of Iraq’s neighbors.
I believe they would LOVE to get down to 30-40K troops in a country quiet enough to stay mostly off the front pages. I believe they would HATE to pull the last soldier or fixed-wing airplane out of the country.
Comment by Jennifer —
October 31, 2006 @ 1:12 pm
I believe they would LOVE to get down to 30-40K troops in a country quiet enough to stay mostly off the front pages. I believe they would HATE to pull the last soldier or fixed-wing airplane out of the country.
I’ll expand upon that, and say that I don’t think they care one way or another whether Iraq is a safe and stable place for Iraqis; they just want Iraq to be a safe and stable place for our bases.
I don’t recall the name, but I remember some Fox News drone on Bill Maher a couple weeks ago actually saying that we Americans deserve to have those bases in Iraq, as payment for all the nice things we’ve done for the country. Uh-huh. I would love to go to her house, throw paint all over her walls and furnishings, steal her jewelry and then say “I DESERVE your jewelry as payment for the lovely redecorating job I did.”
Comment by ran —
October 31, 2006 @ 1:32 pm
If you added “rape and murder her and her kids” I think the analogy would be even better Jennifer.
Comment by BruceR —
October 31, 2006 @ 2:44 pm
To be fair, the non-American, non-Iraqi force numbers have been dropping fairly consistently recently as the Brits, Italians, Poles, etc. redeploy forces to Afghanistan.
Comment by Jennifer —
October 31, 2006 @ 4:42 pm
Point taken, ran.
Comment by tim —
October 31, 2006 @ 5:47 pm
Surely the troops should stay as long as they’re required? Pull out the troops and the carnage will get worse - acceptable I guess if you think we should leave the militants to sort it out amongst themselves… But not very humanitarian.
Comment by Glaivester —
October 31, 2006 @ 6:14 pm
tim -
But if we leave the troops in, will that prevent the carnage, or just delay it?
Comment by Jim Henley —
October 31, 2006 @ 8:11 pm
tim: I’ll take you seriously if you can point me to a blog comment section where you have taken a frustrated hawk to task for complaining that “our problem is we haven’t killed enough Iraqis,” a la the most recent Ralph Peters columns. They’re all over the place and I’m not egotistic enough to think mine is the only blog you read. So if you’re this great humanitarian, surely you’ve reacted with shock and outrage when war SUPPORTERS have made bloodthirsty or callous remarks online. Show me where.
Comment by ran —
October 31, 2006 @ 8:39 pm
I know we’re not leaving Iraq till we’re forced out, or our economy implodes and our creditors cut us off, or until the oil runs out, whichever comes first.
What I can’t abide is people pretending that we’re staying, or should stay, out of humanitarian concern for the Iraqi people.
There’s nothing about the way this massive war crime has unfolded that suggests the slighest humanitarian concern for the Iraqis on our part. Nada. Zip.
Comment by Alex —
October 31, 2006 @ 9:16 pm
ran nails it.
We should put an airbase in Kurdistan and otherwise get the hell out. Period.
As to Afghanistan, I think we should take a cue from our European allies and redeploy there. I heard this rumor that Afghanistan had something to do with 9/11 and that the key players in that event are still at large. So it might be good to, like, go after them or something.
Comment by Scott —
October 31, 2006 @ 11:10 pm
I don’t think the establishment of “permenant” bases in Iraq should be any particular indication of our long term strategy. After all, we built a huge number of similar installations in Vietnam, none of which had an effect on what we ended up doing there. The military and defense contractor burecracries just tend to do these sorts of things in almost every situation.
My belief is that this administration is simply trying to maintain an publically acceptable status quo until it leaves office, at which point the withdrawal will be on another President’s hands.
Comment by the talking dog —
October 31, 2006 @ 11:30 pm
Last I looked, Vietnam didn’t have the world’s second largest proven oil reserves.
As to Iraq, I think we’ll be staying awhile. (Only Karl Rove himself managed to change the name from “Operation Iraqi Liberation”… too hard to say “it’s not about oil” if we called it that!)
On that note… the actual project has been going swimmingly (unless you’re an American soldier or taxpayer… or an Iraqi, of course.) Very well indeed. Iraqi oil has been by and large off-line now for over 3 1/2 years, and may well continue to be off-line for decades. Never again will a tinhorn dictator like Saddam Hussein be able to throw his weight around and think that he (rather than the Saudi royal family and/or OPEC collectively) dictate oil prices. If that takes 140,000 US troops at the end of 2006, 2007, 2008… well, you get the idea.
And Hugo Chavez… you watch your ass.
Comment by Barry —
November 1, 2006 @ 8:54 am
Comment by tim —
October 31, 2006 @ 5:47 pm
“Surely the troops should stay as long as they’re required? Pull out the troops and the carnage will get worse - acceptable I guess if you think we should leave the militants to sort it out amongst themselves… But not very humanitarian. ”
So far the carnage has grown quite nicely; and the US is responsible - remember ‘the El Salvador option’? Negroponte being put into Iraq? The only problem that the administration has with Shiite militias is that they are not under US control.
Comment by Bill Woolsey —
November 4, 2006 @ 9:52 am
At least consider the possiblity that these enduring bases are to be turned over to a hopefully pro-U.S. Iraqi military. They may be larger than needed by the Iraqis, but the point of them is for U.S. troops to return when needed.
In other words, building permanent bases doesn’t prove (or really provide much evidence for) a plan to keep U.S. troops there permanently. Of course, the plan (or at least desire) is for the U.S. to be able to return troops to Iraq when needed to protect/threaten various regimes in the region. Maybe there is a notion that some U.S. troops would stay at one of these bases all the time.
Think about it.
Why is the U.S. building all these fancy bases if the U.S. isn’t intending to permanently station troops there? Well, there are any number of possiblities….
Comment by Jim Henley —
November 4, 2006 @ 10:07 am
Bill, it’s possible that Iraqi troops would be caretakers of hte bases. Two things tell against you, though. 1) “return . . . to protect/threaten varios regimes” is still an interventionist security policy; 2) No matter what we say, we are not building an Iraqi force that can defend itself against its neighbors. We aren’t building an Iraqi air force or any armor to speak of. We aren’t so far providing anything like a modern C-cubed system. We’re building an Iraqi security force that can fight designated internal enemies, but that’s it. Assuming something approaching intentionality, admittedly a stretch with this crowd, that means one of two things: a) we’re planning for the Iraqis to need US patronage (air cover and logistics) to defend their country against external threats; b) we’re planning on configuring the rest of the region to the point that there are no external threats the Iraqis (by our lights) need to defend themselves against.
Comment by Bill Woolsey —
November 4, 2006 @ 1:25 pm
I have little doubt that the reason for everything done in Iraq is in support of an interventionist foreign policy–and that includes any fancy bases being built there.
I will grant that a lack of an Iraqi air force or armor does suggest an intention for U.S. troops to remain, but not because of external threats. It is rather because armor and air power would be useful in continuing to suppress domestic enemies.
No doubt the plan is that to the degree Iraq is subject to foreign threats, it would depend on the U.S. for protection. But that doesn’t mean that the U.S. needs troops in Iraq at all times. Unless a Saudi, Iranian, or Turkish blitzkreig seems likely.
My “theory” is that the purpose of the Iraqi army being trained was to play a role like the Turkish military. Impose limits on Iraqi democracy–making sure that the people don’t elect politicians who can implement an anti-U.S. or anti-Israel foreign policy. Maybe they even dreamed that they would impose secularism. (But I would still think they would need some tanks)
Of course, it doesn’t seem likely to happen.