When is a withdrawal not a withdrawal?
When is a withdrawal not a withdrawal? Apparently, when it's conducted by the Obama administration's "bipartisan" hangovers.
This Sunday,Joe Biden told ABC's George Stephanopoulos that a NY Times report alleging U.S. military commanders argued at Biden's national security meeting this week that they could not meet the 16-month U.S. troop withdrawal from Iraq deadline called for by Obama was false.
"I'm not going to get into detail, but the answer is, nothing was that stark at all. There is -- there isn't any -- there isn't any conclusion reached or presentation made that suggests that we cannot rationalize the -- the status of forces agreement terms and the objectives of the Obama-Biden administration," Biden said.
"He is committed within the context of what he said at the time," Biden said of Obama. "He said he would at the time confer with the military leaders on the ground. We will be out of Iraq in -- in the same -- in the -- in the way in which Barack Obama described his position during the campaign. That will happen."
But on Charlie Rose midweek, Bob Gates was clear that withdrawal doesn't mean withdrawal, not by a long chalk.
ROSE: As far as you understand it, how many residual forces will be left [in Iraq] after 2011?
GATES: Well, I think that remains to be seen, and first of all, because any forces remaining there after the end of 2011 will have to be there as a result of a new agreement negotiated with the Iraqis. So they will clearly have a voice in how many are there as well.
ROSE: If they say none, it’s none or not?
GATES: That’s absolutely right.
ROSE: Yeah.
GATES: That’s absolutely right. They are a sovereign country, and if they tell us after the end of 2011, we want you all out, I think we have no choice but to do that. I think that just in a ball park figure when I think of the support that they likely are going to need for their air force, for their navy, for counterterrorism, for continued training, for intelligence, for logistics and so on, my guess is that you’re looking at perhaps several tens of thousands of American troops, but clearly, in a very different role than we have played for the last five years.
Gates went on to say that these "several tens of thousands" of troops - the equivalent of at least ten brigades - wouldn't have a combat role, but this is still clearly parsing "complete withdrawal" as required by the SOFA beyond the boundaries of the language. Gates obviously expects three years to be "a long time", as both General Mullen and General Odierno have recently phrased it, and expects that what's in the SOFA right now won't be what happens when the day comes due to live up to it.
There's a massive disconnect between Gates and Biden here, one that's only explainable by two possibilities; either that major parsing of Obama's "withdrawal" and the letter of the SOFA agreement is taking place with Obama's permission, or that it isn't. The people deserve to know which one it is.
Meanwhile, Odierno himself, newly annointed as the only true Deciderer by the Three Amigos group of McCain, Lieberman and Graham, has built on his assertions last week that he had no intention of sticking to the U.S. agreement with Iraq which says all U.S. troops must be withdrawn from Iraqi cities by the summer. Now he's saying that "any decision on force structure here in Iraq will be made by me," and he won't be making it before next Spring, in anticipation of a Surge (TM) in violence surrounding the upcoming Iraqi provincial elections.
"So we have to make sure in the election those who didn't win understand that, and we will be able to seat the new government properly," Odierno, the overall commander of U.S. and allied forces in Iraq, told AP late Saturday. "And once we get to that point, it's now time for us to take a look at what is right for the future."
... "I expect we will start to thin our forces in '09. It's the right time to do that," he said. "We will do it in a deliberate, careful way to make sure we have enough combat power to support the Iraqis in case there is the unexpected, a resurgence of an extremist group of some sort that tries to have an affect of the stability inside Iraq."
He also said he hasn't talked to the Obama team about his decision and won't until Obama actually takes office, as he's carrying out Bush policy until then.
Biden may be saying there's no difference in opinion between the Obama team and it's Pentagon holdovers, but it sure looks like there is to me.
Cross posted from Newshoggers. Thanks to Heather for the video clips.
don't withdraw. They just keep sticking it to ya. Anyone still dangling on this "change" fiasco? What incoming Prez has ever had so much publicity? Wow. He's setting even himself up for a letdown.
I doubt it's as simple as we all imagine. Obama's not even president yet. Let's wait and see what happens. He's inheriting one hell of a fucked up mess on EVERY front! He's not superman and no matter what Obama does he's going to piss somebody off.
We created the chaos in Iraq. Perhaps Collin Powell's pottery barn rule applies to some degree.
indeed. I am so sick of the people expecting things to be changed overnight.
when its an obama withdrawal?
yet.
Dislike a few things - includin this - that I've heard.
what? you are more about wait and see what actually happens in his administration instead of knee jerking and condemning him to hell?
there are too few of us.
Is the Iraq non-withdrawal like the rich tax reduction non-rollbacks? Another example of non-change?
Sorry, but that's what you get when you keep the same-old same-old political players. Been there, done that many times over now.
except little me seems to ever mention the 140,000+ private contractors that are there.
When are they withdrawn?
Ever?
It is a private army.
statusquObama, change you can only pretend in
they just workers? *wink, wink*
They are withdrawn (some of them, at least) when the Iraqis revoke their immunity from prosecution.
I've mentioned that before too. I also don't get why they keep calling it a withdrawal when the president elect has himself said he still plans on leaving x number of people there. It's a redeployment.
The other little thing that no one seems to have caught on to yet is that the troops being "withdrawn" from Iraq, will most likely end up in Afghanistan for yet another tour of duty. You know, those same people that have been on one too many tours because of the chimp. I also haven't heard anything about reducing the time for their tours of duty either so it looks like that part of the chimp's policies will live on.
...we'll have to wait and see.
I really have never thought that there's any way the US of A is gonna' bring all the troops home and abandon all of those lovely billion-dollar military bases we've built. I just have the feeling that there will be some "intervening event" in the near term that will create the necessity of keeping our soldiers deployed there - forever.
"Egotism is the anesthetic that dulls the pain of Stupidity" - Frank Leahy
Perhaps the one little redeeming feature of the massive amounts of money thrown away in the Wall Street bailouts is that the money spent on those bases seems tiny in comparison.
Might be useful as a bargaining chip for just leaving Iraq and the bases behind: "It's only a piddling few billion dollars. We gave 10 times that in bonuses to executives alone in the Wall Street bailouts."
and I never thought of it quite in that perspective... that the Bushies came to the SEVEN HUNDRED BILLION DOLLAR figure purely to diminish the cost of the Iraq war in the minds of the people.
I gotta tell you, ever since YEARS of avoiding service in Viet Nam as a draft resister... then enlisting in the US Army for a three year enlistment... I have never felt so used and abused as a CITIZEN. I survived LBJ and Nixon... now we just can't get rid of Bush, Cheney, and Rove soon enough.
How about the largest frigin embassy in the world? How many troops do you think it can hold? After all a U.S. embassy is considered U.S. soil, is it not?
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/12319798/
'Event' Yeah, that's what the contractors are there for, they're event planners.
Not by a long "chalk"?
hmm....
We collapse next year like the USSR.
Happy Holidays comrades!
Obama's not prez yet, and he's also not Gates' boss yet. Let's at least let Obama actually get into office before we start holding his underlings' feet to the fire.
thoughtful and considerate people. Be careful. some disgruntled liberal may attack you for not waiting to attack Obama.
Some stuff you can't make up!
attacked by disgruntled liberals before, and likely will again. Oh well.
I can understand people being passionate, but it needs to be tempered by at least a passing grasp on reality.
The reality is: Robert Gates is still answering to George Bush.
Barack Obama has NO POWER.
Until January 20th, Gates is not speaking for Obama, he is speaking for Bush.
End of story.
to play the victim circle jerk while telling us "disgruntled" liberals to basically "shut the fuck up."
No one's saying to "shut the fuck up".
I'm saying that Obama isn't even in power yet.
Is that fact in dispute?
current actions or policy declarations (which are all facts too) are either "off limits" or considered an attack by us "disgruntled liberals" on you self titled "thoughtful and considerate" people. Yes, that is basically what you guys are saying.
Alas, owning to it... would sort of undermine the whole victim thing you guys got going there. However, I can see how it sure makes it easier to squash any sort of debate by placing things arbitrarily "off limits." It is also intellectually dishonest.
did use the phrase "disgruntled liberal", I did not *originate* that phrase, nor did I use the phrase "thoughtful and considerate", although I have high enough self esteem that I did not argue the point. The way I was using that phrase, however, hearkens back to my time over on DK (which has still scarred me a bit), where people would jump on me for not "toeing the party line" and participating in the groupthink. Maybe that's not how he meant it. Oh well.
However, I have not placed anything arbitrarily off limits - I don't have the power to do that. You can talk all you want. I'll even respond if I remember to come back here. But that doesn't change the fact that the cart is before the horse. Obama is not in power. Gates does not report to Obama. Nothing Obama says right now actually matters with regard to policy, until Jan. 20th.
So talk all you want. You're welcome to. But the facts haven't changed. And, until Jan. 20th, they're not going to. I continue to maintain that getting on Obama for the actions of someone who does not report to him is, to say the least, premature, and to say the most, reckless.
Now if you want to keep up with the ad hominem attacks (you're certainly not debating the *issues* here, even if it may not be a direct insult), go for it. I'll be elsewhere knocking myself out with flu medicine. Toodles.
He picked Hilary. You know the one who stated that we will obliterate Iran if there is any shenanigans. Oh my God I got oodles of faith in this misguided witch and her womanizing husband. Grand pick among others. It brings tears to my eyes for the people who put so much faith in this smoozy" we need change" crap. Well, keep buying their crap bailouts and all right to the last. Just remember when the shit hits the fan they will all be in the bunkers that taxpayers paid for. Yeah, keep accepting the bullshit. You know deep down inside The Obama Administration will not prosecute Bush, Cheney, and the rest of disciples. Why because that would set a precedent with which all politicians will be held accountable like Obama and Pelosi and Reid and Schumer and of course one of my favourites, Fienstein. Do you see what she`s in charge of considering her husband and what he does for a living. They all Dems and Repugs are joined at the hip to the Military Industrial Complex and now more than ever the greedy fucking Bankers. Adios suckers.
All I know is that the world would be a better place if Barb and George Senior had done it.
*
my pull out remark was deleted.
that's when a withdrawal is not a withdrawal.
I am not only a pacifist but a militant pacifist. I am willing to fight for peace. Nothing will end war unless the people themselves refuse to go to war.
“Albert Einstein”
I know not with what weapons World War III will be fought, but World War IV will be fought with sticks and stones.
“Albert Einstein”
Study the symptoms not the virus...
War would end if the dead could return.
"Stanley Baldwin"
Study the symptoms not the virus...
There's a massive disconnect between Gates and Biden
No, there's not. Obama's withdrawal proposal was for combat troops. It always left open the possibility of tens of thousands of troops to remain for counter-terrorism, "protecting American service members and ... training Iraqi security forces," a force the Iraq Study Group (which the Obama campaign claimed "largely affirmed" his thinking on Iraq) estimated would run to the tens of thousands. And they would of necessity remain for an indefinite period.
So no, there is absolutely no disconnect between Joe Biden saying "we'll withdraw in accordance with Obama's pledge" and Bob Gates saying there might be tens of thousands of troops in Iraq after 2011 unless the Iraqis say otherwise. (In fact that last part is something of a stand down from what the Shrub gang had been hinting.)
This is an entire nation founded on saying one thing and doing another.
I wasn't expecting Obama to be any different.
At this point I would be just content if he does well enough to keep most of us from the bread line, that is how diminished my expectations are after decades of getting nothing but hubris from our politicians...
The military don't start wars. Politicians start wars.
"William Westmoreland"
What is human warfare but just this; an effort to make the laws of God and nature take sides with one party.
"Henry David Thoreau"
War does not determine who is right - only who is left.
"Bertrand Russell"
Study the symptoms not the virus...
If anyone here believes that we can pull completely out of Iraq within 16 months, I've got a bridge to sell you. The Iraqi government is going to need a great deal of support - military and otherwise - over the next decade. And, don't think that oil revenues will be able to fully pay for the rebuilding of Iraq's infrastructure. Why? Checked the latest prices for crude? No, we'll be in Iraq for years to come, perhaps not as combat forces, but certainly as supporting elements. Another boooosh legacy. Thanks georgie.
Ask the wimmin.
They know an early withdrawal from a timely one.
Diabolus est Deus Inversus
Guess it depends on what Obama's definition of "pragmatism" is since he has called himself a pragmatist. If he is a "political pragmatist" [an oxymoron like "military intelligence"], and he is giving strong indications that he is, then we're all still f*cked because we've seen for years and years how connected to reality the D.C. Beltway has been in "cooperating" to toss out their perverted mutations of leadership.
If we want reality-based change I assume we will have to scream bloody murder at D.C. unremittently as a united public all throughout this administration because real change comes from the bottom up. It's time we all quit believing in "Big Daddy who will make it right". And for that matter, the "Great Man" theory of history. Sometimes history changes when the people are too damn sick of taking it anymore.
The only thing that is going to be changed in the White House will be the linen.
Troops will remain to guard our monstrosity of an Embassy in Iraq as long as we have an American Mission there.
Donaldd
Can't they get one thing straight? Or, perhaps they just don't care what the American people want or demand. It seems apparent that all that matters anymore is that they say what they need to say to get themselves elected, and then do what they damn well please.
I hope I am wrong, but it sounds as though we better brace ourselves for some more change, and not the kind we voted for!
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