I printed a number of press releases yesterday from politicians in response to the Iraq Study Group report. But the only one that, I think, really said anything was John Murtha’s. The key passage from Murtha was: “The ISG recommended that we begin a withdrawal of U.S. troops by early 2008, depending on conditions on the ground. This is no different than the current policy.”
From what I can tell, this isn’t quite what the report says. It says we should have a majority of our troops out by early 2008. That’s a big difference since, as Kevin Drum points out here, moving 50,000 or 100,000 troops out of war zone takes a very long period of time. You don’t do it in a month. Kevin says that force protection doctrines require a withdrawal of that size to take someting like a year — 12 months.
Now, the first thing I’d like is to see if anybody can point me in the direction of more precise information on the time frame of such a withdrawal. I don’t have much doubt Kevin’s in the ballpark. But I’d like to nail this down because if that estimate is right, as Kevin points out, that means we’d need to start the process of withdrawal in the next couple months to keep on schedule. So, can anyone point me to more specific information on that?
Murtha’s larger point, however, seems right. Saying we’d like to get a lot of our troops out of Iraq in a year or a year and a half “depending on conditions on the ground” really is the same policy we have right now. A hope, absent a plan, and contingent on things getting better in Iraq — a development that seems highly unlikely and less likely by the day.
The rub of the issue I don’t see being discussed — at least not directly — is this, the category question: are US troops more a cause of instability in Iraq or a solution/buffer against instability? This has always been the anguish and impossibility of our position in the country. As I wrote over at TPMCafe almost a year and a half ago, the dilemma of our presence in Iraq has been that we’re both the glue holding the place together and the solvent tearing it apart.
But it can’t really be both. Or, rather, it has to be more one than the other. And that’s the choice that the ISG, I think, couldn’t make. The right policy flows logically from that choice. If our presence is more problem than solution than you pull the troops out in a way to mitigate damage and you do it in an orderly matter. But you wouldn’t stop the course of withdrawal if things got worse on the ground. If anything you’d accelerate it.
Late Update: A anonymous reader disagrees …
I don’t think that’s what the ISG report says.
The Bush policy, in a nutshell, is: Proceed with training Iraqi forces and, as they get better, we hand them more responsibility, enabling us to leave. Conditions on the ground permitting. The ISG policy, in a nutshell, is: Withdraw US forces by the first quarter 2008, barring “unexpected developments in the security situation on the ground.”
Still don’t see the difference? OK.
What happens when you couple the “unexpected developments” with the ISG’s comment that “The United States must make it clear to the Iraqi government that the United States could carry out its plans, including planned redeployments, even if the Iraqi government did not implement their planned changes.” (page 7, and the context makes it clear they mean, “even if you don’t do reconciliation, troop training, etc”).
Constant level of violence? Not an “unexpected development.” Failure to move forward on national reconciliation? Not an “unexpected development.” Failure to train Iraqi security forces? Not an “unexpected development.”
So what do we get?
Bush policy: We can only leave if the government is up, running, and healthy and the Iraqi security forces are ready to take over.
ISG policy: Ready or not, we’re leaving. Unless, you know, Saudi Arabia or Iran or Turkey invades.
I think that’s considerably different.
