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U.S. Envoy Offers Grim Prediction on Iraq Pullout

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  • U.S. Envoy Offers Grim Prediction on Iraq Pullout

    New York Times

    By JOHN F. BURNS and ALISSA J. RUBIN
    July 10, 2007
    BAGHDAD, July 9 — As the Senate prepares to begin a new debate this week on proposals for a withdrawal from Iraq, the United States ambassador and the Iraqi foreign minister are warning that the departure of American troops could lead to sharply increased violence, the deaths of thousands and a regional conflict that could draw in Iraq’s neighbors.

    Two months before a pivotal assessment of progress in the war that he and the overall American military commander in Iraq are to make to the White House and Congress in September, Ryan C. Crocker, the ambassador, laid out a grim forecast of what could happen if the policy debate in Washington led to a significant pullback or even withdrawal of American forces, perhaps to bases outside the major cities.

    “You can’t build a whole policy on a fear of a negative, but, boy, you’ve really got to account for it,” Mr. Crocker said Saturday in an interview at his office in Saddam Hussein’s old Republican Palace, now the seat of American power here. Setting out what he said was not a policy prescription but a review of issues that needed to be weighed, the ambassador compared Iraq’s current violence to the early scenes of a gruesome movie.

    “In the States, it’s like we’re in the last half of the third reel of a three-reel movie, and all we have to do is decide we’re done here, and the credits come up, and the lights come on, and we leave the theater and go on to something else,” he said. “Whereas out here, you’re just getting into the first reel of five reels,” he added, “and as ugly as the first reel has been, the other four and a half are going to be way, way worse.”

    Hoshyar Zebari, the foreign minister, sounded a similar warning at a Baghdad news conference on Monday. “The dangers vary from civil war to dividing the country or maybe to regional wars,” he said, referring to an American withdrawal. “In our estimation the danger is huge. Until the Iraqi forces and institutions complete their readiness, there is a responsibility on the U.S. and other countries to stand by the Iraqi government and the Iraqi people to help build up their capabilities.”

    Fearing that the last pillars of Republican support for the war were eroding, the White House invited Senators John W. Warner, Republican of Virginia, who has been critical of the administration’s war policy, and Jon Kyl, Republican of Arizona, a supporter of the American troop presence, to the White House to ask them to delay votes on withdrawal until the administration delivers an interim progress report on the war, due in September.

    Administration officials say Mr. Bush is considering a news conference on Iraq this week and is also likely to talk about it Tuesday during a trip to Cleveland that was intended to focus on his domestic agenda.

    Although Senator Warner said he was inclined to heed the president’s request to delay a vote, the Democratic leader, Senator Harry Reid, of Nevada, said Monday afternoon that he would not wait. Indeed, hours later, the Senate began debate on the National Defense Authorization Act, the main military spending bill for the next budget year — and a vehicle for trying to force the administration to change its policy.

    The bill calls for the military to balance the amount of time American troops spend overseas and on American soil, a measure that would limit troop deployments to Iraq.

    While Senators Richard G. Lugar, of Indiana, and Pete V. Domenici, of New Mexico, and other Republicans have publicly urged a change of course, the Senate debate is testing party alliances. Mr. Warner and Senator Carl Levin, Democrat of Michigan, are set to speak Tuesday morning at a rare bipartisan meeting to discuss Iraq. And Senator Olympia J. Snowe, a Maine Republican, said she was strongly supporting for the first time a bill with a specific timetable to remove troops from Iraq.

    But the White House insisted Monday that Mr. Bush did not intend to change gears. “Don’t expect us to lift a veil and have a whole different strategy,” the spokesman, Tony Snow, said. “We’re not going to have a strategy jumping out of a cake.”

    Mr. Crocker’s remarks echoed warnings that have been made for months by President Bush and other administration officials. But Mr. Crocker, a career diplomat,, seemed eager to emphasize that the report he and Gen. David H. Petraeus are to make in September — an event Mr. Bush and his war critics have presented as a watershed moment — would represent their professional judgment, unburdened by any reflex to back administration policy.

    In the interview, which was requested by The New York Times, he said, “We’ll give the best assessment we can, and the most honest.” Unusually for American officials here, who have generally avoided any comparisons between the situation in Iraq and the war in Vietnam, he compared the task that he and General Petraeus face in reporting back in September to the one faced by Ambassador Ellsworth Bunker and Gen. Creighton W. Abrams Jr., the two top Americans in Vietnam when the decisions that led to the American withdrawal there were made nearly 40 years ago.

    General Petraeus, too, has warned in recent months that while there is a high price for staying in Iraq, including mounting American casualties, the price for leaving could be higher than many war critics have acknowledged. Some opponents of the war have argued the contrary, saying that keeping American troops in Iraq provokes much of the violence and that withdrawing could force Iraq’s feuding politicians into burying their sectarian differences.

    In the interview, Mr. Crocker said he based his warning about what might happen if American troops left on the realities he has seen in the four months since he took up the Baghdad post, a knowledge of Iraq and its violent history dating back to a previous Baghdad posting more than 25 years ago, and lessons learned during an assignment in Beirut in the early 1980s. Then, he said, a “failure of imagination” made it impossible to foresee the extreme violence that enveloped Lebanon as it descended into civil war. He added, “And I’m sure what will happen here exceeds my imagination.”

    Skip to next paragraph
    Reach of War
    Go to Complete Coverage » On the potential for worsening violence after an American withdrawal from Iraq, he said: “You have to look at what the consequences would be, and you look at those who say we could have bases elsewhere in the country. Well yes, we could, but we would have the prospect of American forces looking on while civilians by the thousands were slaughtered. Not a pretty prospect.”

    In setting out what he called “the kind of things you have to think about” before an American troop withdrawal, the ambassador cited several possibilities. He said these included a resurgence by the insurgent group Al Qaeda in Mesopotamia, which he said had been “pretty hard-pressed of late” by the additional 30,000 troops Mr. Bush ordered deployed here this year; the risk that Iraq’s 350,000-strong security forces would “completely collapse” under sectarian pressures, disintegrating into militias; and the specter of interference by Iran, neighboring Sunni Arab states and Turkey.

    The ambassador also suggested what is likely to be another core element of the approach that he and General Petraeus will take to the September report: that the so-called benchmarks for Iraqi government performance set by Congress in a defense authorization bill this spring may not be the best way of assessing whether the United States has a partner in the Baghdad government that warrants continued American military backing. “The longer I’m here, the more I’m persuaded that Iraq cannot be analyzed by these kind of discrete benchmarks,” he said.

    After the Iraqi government drew up the first list of benchmarks last year, American officials used them as their yardstick, frequently faulting the Iraqis for failure to act on them, especially on three items the Americans identified as priorities: a new oil law sharing revenue between Iraq’s main population groups; a new “de-Baathification” law widening access to government jobs to members of Saddam Hussein’s former ruling party; and a law scheduling provincial elections to choose representative governments in areas where Shiites, Sunnis and Kurds are competing for power.

    But Mr. Crocker said there were better ways to measure progress, including the levels of security across Iraq, progress in delivering basic services like electricity to the population, and steps by Iraqi leaders from rival groups to work more collaboratively.

    Measured solely by the legislative benchmarks, he said, “you could not achieve any of them, and still have a situation where arguably the country is moving in the right direction. And conversely, I think you could achieve them all and still not be heading towards stability, security and overall success for Iraq.”
    http://www.nytimes.com/2007/07/10/wo...10iraq.html?hp
    To be Truly ignorant, Man requires an Education - Plato

  • #2
    Isn't it going to get harder and harder to fight this war when the Dems control the US House of Reps and the Senate (AFAIK 2 indies prop them up there)?

    Can Bush veto bill after bill that comes to his desk or do his legislative "interference" powers have limits?
    Although it is not true that all conservatives are stupid people, it is true that most stupid people are conservative.
    - John Stuart Mill.

    Comment


    • #3
      Originally posted by crooks View Post
      Isn't it going to get harder and harder to fight this war when the Dems control the US House of Reps and the Senate (AFAIK 2 indies prop them up there)?
      Yeah, it's harder when you have to buck negative public opinion because it limits what you can do.

      But it's no longer a question of whether it's harder to fight with dems in control, but whether we'll fight at all.



      Can Bush veto bill after bill that comes to his desk or do his legislative "interference" powers have limits?
      Yes, he can veto anything and everything. Congress can override with a 60%majority. But Dems only have a 1 seat advantage in the Senate. Even with more GOP senators becoming grumpy about the war it will be hard to override there.

      I'm surprised at Bush's steadfastness. Most other recent presidents with perhaps the exception of Reagan, would have caved by now.
      To be Truly ignorant, Man requires an Education - Plato

      Comment


      • #4
        JAD,

        Most other recent presidents with perhaps the exception of Reagan, would have caved by now.
        why reagan? he caved in lebanon.
        There is a cult of ignorance in the United States, and there has always been. The strain of anti-intellectualism has been a constant thread winding its way through our political and cultural life, nurtured by the false notion that democracy means that "My ignorance is just as good as your knowledge."- Isaac Asimov

        Comment


        • #5
          Originally posted by astralis View Post
          JAD,



          why reagan? he caved in lebanon.
          He didn't want to be there in the first place. Not our war at the time.
          To be Truly ignorant, Man requires an Education - Plato

          Comment


          • #6
            Originally posted by JAD_333 View Post
            He didn't want to be there in the first place. Not our war at the time.
            Actually he's the one that put the whole thing together. Through the Ambassador to Lebanon. And brought in the French, Italians and later the Brits.
            He was also the one that tied our hands while we were there

            Comment


            • #7
              Originally posted by Gun Grape View Post
              Actually he's the one that put the whole thing together. Through the Ambassador to Lebanon. And brought in the French, Italians and later the Brits.
              He was also the one that tied our hands while we were there
              You mean Amb Phillip Habib? The MLF was a joint French-US presense with a small Italian contingent. Habib wanted a MLF presense to help "enforce" the truce agreement he negotiated wherein the PLO would leave Lebanon and the Israelis would pull back to their border. The Syrians ignored their part and stayed. Once the PLO fighters left, SecDef Weinberger ordered the marines back to their ships and that would be the end of it, but then the Israelis went on a killing spree in a Palestinian refugee camp outside Beruit and back came the Marines. It was Wienberger, an old friend of Reagan, who hated the idea of the MLF and I suspect so did Reagan, although starting with SecState Alexander Haig and then his replacement Schultz and NSA Bud McFarlane advised a stronger MLF presense. Reagan didn't 'tie our hands' when we were there. We had no clear military mission to start with; we were window dressing conceived in a nostalgic idea that we could repeat Ike's successful incusion in 1958. We were only beginning to grasp the ferocity of the struggle going on in the ME at the time. What people tend to forget is that we did not pull out for another 4 months after the bombing. And then we just went offshore where we lobbed shells into the hills from the Battleship (?). I was working at DoD at the time; the back hall word all along was that Reagan wasn't comfortable with our guys on shore. He defended it nonetheless and never passed the buck the way the others did.
              To be Truly ignorant, Man requires an Education - Plato

              Comment


              • #8
                Originally posted by JAD_333 View Post
                Yes, he can veto anything and everything. Congress can override with a 60%majority.
                JAD,

                Both houses must have a 2/3 majority in order to override a veto. The 60 votes that you are thinking of is to invoke cloture in the Senate, i.e., to stop a filibuster of a motion.
                "So little pains do the vulgar take in the investigation of truth, accepting readily the first story that comes to hand." Thucydides 1.20.3

                Comment


                • #9
                  Originally posted by Shek View Post
                  JAD,

                  Both houses must have a 2/3 majority in order to override a veto. The 60 votes that you are thinking of is to invoke cloture in the Senate, i.e., to stop a filibuster of a motion.
                  Alright already..66 votes. You don't expect me to be right all the time. The book seems to revolve around one point; pharmacutical companies make televisions. It's an excellent allegory. I don't think I could have stayed awake reading a large technical tome on the subject. That's for you econ wonks. In any case, it has given me a more solid basis for my belief in free trade; before I relied more on my instinct. Would you like to have it back for your students?
                  To be Truly ignorant, Man requires an Education - Plato

                  Comment


                  • #10
                    Originally posted by JAD_333 View Post
                    Alright already..66 votes. You don't expect me to be right all the time. The book seems to revolve around one point; pharmacutical companies make televisions. It's an excellent allegory. I don't think I could have stayed awake reading a large technical tome on the subject. That's for you econ wonks. In any case, it has given me a more solid basis for my belief in free trade; before I relied more on my instinct. Would you like to have it back for your students?
                    JAD,

                    No worries, I'm not keeping score (although it should be .67 ).

                    Glad that you liked the book. No need to send it back - they'll have their opportunity to contribute their fair share towards US GDP.
                    "So little pains do the vulgar take in the investigation of truth, accepting readily the first story that comes to hand." Thucydides 1.20.3

                    Comment


                    • #11
                      Originally posted by Shek View Post
                      JAD,

                      No worries, I'm not keeping score (although it should be .67 ).

                      Glad that you liked the book. No need to send it back - they'll have their opportunity to contribute their fair share towards US GDP.
                      Have you read Supreme Command by Eliot Cohen. Someone on the WAB recommended it, perhaps Dale. It profiles the war leadership of Lincoln. Clemenceau, Churchhill and Ben Gurion. Excellent book. Interested?
                      To be Truly ignorant, Man requires an Education - Plato

                      Comment


                      • #12
                        Originally posted by JAD_333 View Post
                        You mean Amb Phillip Habib? The MLF was a joint French-US presense with a small Italian contingent. Habib wanted a MLF presense to help "enforce" the truce agreement he negotiated wherein the PLO would leave Lebanon and the Israelis would pull back to their border.
                        I don't think he got the idea on his own and ran with it. You don't negotiate
                        an agreement with foreign countries that also happen to involve non state dept assets (DoD) without the big mans approval.

                        The Syrians ignored their part and stayed. Once the PLO fighters left, SecDef Weinberger ordered the marines back to their ships and that would be the end of it, but then the Israelis went on a killing spree in a Palestinian refugee camp outside Beruit and back came the Marines.
                        Went there, done that:)

                        Reagan didn't 'tie our hands' when we were there.
                        OK blame the State Dept for the assinine RoE
                        We had no clear military mission to start with; we were window dressing conceived in a nostalgic idea that we could repeat Ike's successful incusion in 1958. We were only beginning to grasp the ferocity of the struggle going on in the ME at the time.
                        I'll strongly disagree with that statement. We were there to seperate all factions, showing favoritism to none. Not even the IDF.

                        And the people on the ground saw that and didn't see us as the enemy. We were the referee.

                        Then someone came up with the bright idea that we should take sides.Fire up Suq Al Gharb in support of the LCA. Share targeting info with the LCA. Train the LCA, slack off on enforcing no-go zones for some of the groups. Use US fire power to support one side. Heck we even tied into the LCA positions. Thats when we painted a big bullseye on our chest and a kick-me sign on our backs. It was the people stateside that didn't relise that the RoEs that weren't worth a crap to begin with were truely worthless once people start disliking you.

                        I was working at DoD at the time; the back hall word all along was that Reagan wasn't comfortable with our guys on shore. He defended it nonetheless and never passed the buck the way the others did.
                        Hey Reagan and I had something in common. I wasn't comfortable
                        being on shore either

                        Comment


                        • #13
                          [QUOTE=Gun Grape;389579]I don't think he got the idea on his own and ran with it. You don't negotiate
                          an agreement with foreign countries that also happen to involve non state dept assets (DoD) without the big mans approval.[/quote)

                          You're right. I wasn't clear. The MLF was already there when Habib went over as special envoy. After brokering an agreement, Habib wanted the MLF to be more enforcement minded. What exactly he expected I don't know.


                          Went there, done that:)
                          Wow. Like living in a mine field, wasn't it. Did you ever run into Rich Higgins, the marine officer working for UNIFIL who was murdered by an Islamic revolutionary group. May be after your time. I knew him. He worked in the SecDef's office on (yawn) correspondence, which is no small thing when it involves the SecDef, but he wanted punch his ticket and asked for the UNIFIL job. He lobbied hard. I recall a lot of misgivings about it: what if was kidnapped and tortured (as he was); having worked in SecDef's office, he'd be goldmine of secret policy stuff... Footnote: his wife was also a Marine officer, public affairs, and was working at Pentagon before and after he was murdered.

                          OK blame the State Dept for the assinine RoE
                          Well, the policy was don't take sides.

                          ..strongly disagree with that statement. We were there to seperate all factions, showing favoritism to none. Not even the IDF. And the people on the ground saw that and didn't see us as the enemy. We were the referee.
                          That was the idea, but as I am sure you know we're never really able to sell ourselves as unbiased to the Arab and Islamic side. They automatically assume we're biased in favor of the IDF, afterall we were giving Israel $4 billion a year in military aid. Look at the picture from the Islamic POV: we pull out right after the last PLO ship set sail and then almost immediately the Phalangists go on a killing spree in that Beruit PLO camp while the IDF stands by and does nothing. Then we hustle back ashore. Shultze openly said at the time that the US is partly guilty for the massacre because we left. Appearances are everything.

                          Then someone came up with the bright idea that we should take sides.Fire up Suq Al Gharb in support of the LCA. Share targeting info with the LCA. Train the LCA, slack off on enforcing no-go zones for some of the groups. Use US fire power to support one side. Heck we even tied into the LCA positions. Thats when we painted a big bullseye on our chest and a kick-me sign on our backs. It was the people stateside that didn't relise that the RoEs that weren't worth a crap to begin with were truely worthless once people start disliking you.
                          Don't you think by then our biases were out in the open. We wanted a stable Lebenon; the newly elected Christian president (?Chamoun) is assassinated just before his inauguration; then a relative (I think) is elected; he asks US to stay in country and even beef up its forces. Our policy to help the Lebanese army get back control of all of the country didn't sit well the bad guys who didn't want to be kicked out; so they chased us offshore.


                          Hey Reagan and I had something in common. I wasn't comfortable
                          being on shore either
                          Who was?:)
                          To be Truly ignorant, Man requires an Education - Plato

                          Comment


                          • #14
                            Originally posted by JAD_333 View Post

                            You're right. I wasn't clear. The MLF was already there when Habib went over as special envoy. After brokering an agreement, Habib wanted the MLF to be more enforcement minded. What exactly he expected I don't know.
                            But we were enforcing the ceasefire and running patrols to make sure that all the players were staying in their agreed on areas. But we couldn't follow it up with force

                            Wow. Like living in a mine field, wasn't it. Did you ever run into Rich Higgins, the marine officer working for UNIFIL who was murdered by an Islamic revolutionary group. May be after your time.
                            He was there a few years later. 88 I think.

                            Buckley was the one that was kidnapped right after we left. I remember when I first heard about it I confussed him with the other Bill Buckley. My favorite conservative.

                            his wife was also a Marine officer, public affairs, and was working at Pentagon before and after he was murdered.
                            And at the remembrance service in 1990 she said a few wise words

                            "If we forgive, if we forget, if we thank
                            these savages, then we are merely inviting them, at a time and place they
                            will select, to kill again. Shame on us if we do."
                            too bad we didn't listen.
                            That was the idea, but as I am sure you know we're never really able to sell ourselves as unbiased to the Arab and Islamic side. They automatically assume we're biased in favor of the IDF, afterall we were giving Israel $4 billion a year in military aid. Look at the picture from the Islamic POV: we pull out right after the last PLO ship set sail and then almost immediately the Phalangists go on a killing spree in that Beruit PLO camp while the IDF stands by and does nothing. Then we hustle back ashore. Shultze openly said at the time that the US is partly guilty for the massacre because we left. Appearances are everything.
                            But on the ground we were selling it. It was seen by our actions. Especially after the Capt faced down the IDF tank with his .45 (and a little more that wasn't seen on TV) that was broadcast all over the world.

                            Like a lot of things, and a lot of places. They may have cursed the US and the Administration but there wasn't any hostile feelings towards us as a group. I know i'll catch crap for saying this but we had as many problems with the IDF firing into our positions to invoke a response as we did from the various factions. In fact after lighting up the syrian battery, we would often be called/notified when stray rounds would drop in the pos, that "We are not shooting at you guys."


                            Don't you think by then our biases were out in the open. We wanted a stable Lebenon; the newly elected Christian president (?Chamoun) is assassinated just before his inauguration; then a relative (I think) is elected; he asks US to stay in country and even beef up its forces. Our policy to help the Lebanese army get back control of all of the country didn't sit well the bad guys who didn't want to be kicked out; so they chased us offshore.
                            then the people at the Pentagon and State Dept should have changed the RoE and allowed us to defend ourselves.
                            Last edited by Gun Grape; 14 Jul 07,, 19:01.

                            Comment


                            • #15
                              Originally posted by Gun Grape View Post
                              But we were enforcing the ceasefire and running patrols to make sure that all the players were staying in their agreed on areas. But we couldn't follow it up with force
                              No, nor could UNIFIL.. In those situations the best you can hope for is publicizing the infractions to bring down negative opinion on the culprits and their state sponsors...milktoast, but I don't think we could have done more without reducing what little effectiveness we had.



                              But on the ground we were selling it. It was seen by our actions. Especially after the Capt faced down the IDF tank with his .45 (and a little more that wasn't seen on TV) that was broadcast all over the world.
                              Heard about that. Yes, we were doing ok to start with, but from the POV of Hezbolla and its patron, Iran, and the Syrians, our jumping on the IDF suited their purposes. Once the IDF pulled back, they reverted to type and went after us.


                              Like a lot of things, and a lot of places. They may have cursed the US and the Administration but there wasn't any hostile feelings towards us as a group. I know i'll catch crap for saying this but we had as many problems with the IDF firing into our positions to invoke a response as we did from the various factions. In fact after lighting up the syrian battery, we would often be called/notified when stray rounds would drop in the pos, that "We are not shooting at you guys."
                              Little picture in a big picture. BTW, remember when IDF attacked our ship in the Med? Did they know what they were doing?


                              then the people at the Pentagon and State Dept should have changed the RoE and allowed us to defend ourselves.
                              Maybe, but then we become what we say we are not and next time we try to be an honest broker, a prejudice hangs over our intentions. Damned if you do; damned if you don't.
                              To be Truly ignorant, Man requires an Education - Plato

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