Guests, Like Fish, Begin to Smell after Three Days

by Eric Martin

A senior U.S. military official and adviser to the Iraqi military’s Baghdad command, Col. Timothy R. Reese, wrote a rather blunt memo that has recently found the light of day (copy here).  In the memo, Reese argues that the U.S. should accelerate its withdrawal from Iraq based on the following factors: we have already accomplished what was possible for us to achieve militarily, the way forward involves Iraqi issues best-suited for Iraqi solutions (or not) and, further, that our continued presence is actually increasing tension, resistance, risk to our troops and the potential for a serious rift in relations.

Reese argues that we have lost leverage over the Iraqi government, and the ability to influence the political/military landscape.  Political reconciliation - the endgame that the Surge was supposed to secure - is backsliding, as corruption and self-dealing have settled in as the norm:

The general lack of progress in essential services and good governance is now so broad that it ought to be clear that we no longer are moving the Iraqis “forward.” Below is an outline of the information on which I base this assessment:

1. The ineffectiveness and corruption of GOI [ed note: Government of Iraq] Ministries is the stuff of legend.

2. The anti-corruption drive is little more than a campaign tool for Maliki

3. The GOI is failing to take rational steps to improve its electrical infrastructure and to improve their oil exploration, production and exports.

4. There is no progress towards resolving the Kirkuk situation.

5. Sunni Reconciliation is at best at a standstill and probably going backwards.

6. Sons of Iraq (SOI) or Sahwa transition to ISF [ed note: Iraqi Security Forces] and GOI civil service is not happening, and SOI monthly paydays continue to fall further behind.

Iraq's security forces, with new-found confidence and long-simmering resentment, are pressing their prerogatives with increasing assertiveness (as should be expected of any people that underwent such a prolonged occupation):

It is clear that the 30 Jun milestone does not represent one small step in a long series of gradual steps on the path the US withdrawal, but as Maliki has termed it, a “great victory” over the Americans and fundamental change in our relationship. The recent impact of this mentality on military operations is evident:

1. Iraqi Ground Forces Command (IGFC) unilateral restrictions on US forces that violate the most basic aspects of the SA

2. BOC unilateral restrictions that violate the most basic aspects of the SA

3. International Zone incidents in the last week where ISF forces have resorted to shows of force to get their way at Entry Control Points (ECP) including the forcible takeover of ECP 1 on 4 July

4. Sudden coolness to advisors and CDRs, lack of invitations to meetings,

5. Widespread partnership problems reported in other areas such as ISF confronting US forces at TCPs in the city of Baghdad and other major cities in Iraq.

6. ISF units are far less likely to want to conduct combined combat operations with US forces, to go after targets the US considers high value, etc.

7. The Iraqi legal system in the Rusafa side of Baghdad has demonstrated a recent willingness to release individuals originally detained by the US for attacks on the US.

Importantly, Reese contends that Iraqi Security Forces are at the point where they can stand on their own, while our soldiers are becoming convenient targets to several factions:

Yet despite all their grievous shortcomings noted above, ISF military capability is sufficient to handle the current level of threats from Sunni and Shiite violent groups. Our combat forces’ presence here on the streets and in the rural areas adds only marginally to their capability while exposing us to attacks to which we cannot effectively respond.

The GOI and the ISF will not be toppled by the violence as they might have been between 2006 and 2008. Though two weeks does not make a trend, the near cessation of attacks since 30 June speaks volumes about how easily Shiite violence can be controlled and speaks to the utter weakness of AQI. The extent of AQ influence in Iraq is so limited as to be insignificant, only when they get lucky with a mass casualty attack are they relevant. Shiite groups are working with the PM and his political allies, or plotting to work against him in the upcoming elections. We are merely convenient targets for delivering a message against Maliki by certain groups, and perhaps by Maliki when he wants us to be targeted. Extremist violence from all groups is directed towards affecting their political standing within the existing power structures of Iraq.There is no longer any coherent insurgency or serious threat to the stability of the GOI posed by violent groups.

Our combat operations are currently the victim of circular logic. We conduct operations to kill or capture violent extremists of all types to protect the Iraqi people and support the GOI. The violent extremists attack us because we are still here conducting military operations. Furthermore, their attacks on us are no longer an organized campaign to defeat our will to stay; the attacks which kill and maim US combat troops are signals or messages sent by various groups as part of the political struggle for power in Iraq. The exception to this is AQI which continues is globalist terror campaign. Our operations are in support of an Iraqi government that no longer relishes our help while at the same time our operations generate the extremist opposition to us as various groups jockey for power in post-occupation Iraq.

The GOI and ISF will continue to squeeze the US for all the “goodies” that we can provide between now and December 2011, while eliminating our role in providing security and resisting our efforts to change the institutional problems prevent the ISF from getting better. They will tolerate us as long as they can suckle at Uncle Sam’s bounteous mammary glands. Meanwhile the level of resistance to US freedom of movement and operations will grow. The potential for Iraqi on US violence is high now and will grow by the day. Resentment on both sides will build and reinforce itself until a violent incident break outs into the open. If that were to happen the violence will remain tactically isolated, but it will wreck our strategic relationships and force our withdrawal under very unfavorable circumstances. [emphasis added]

His conclusion is eminently sensible:

The massive partnering efforts of U.S. combat forces with I.S.F. isn’t yielding benefits commensurate with the effort and is now generating its own opposition. We should declare our intentions to withdraw all U.S. military forces from Iraq by August 2010. This would not be a strategic paradigm shift, but an acceleration of existing U.S. plans by some 15 months.

That sounds like a plan.

(Spencer Ackerman has more)

Comments

[Sam Simple]

Obama ought to make it into a race and award prizes to the platoon that can pack up and get to the border the quickest on their way out of this shithole!

[Gary Farber]

Eric, something I find interesting, but am too busy right now with contractors working here, and other stuff, to look up to cite at the moment, is that I've in recent weeks read some highly right-wing military-type bloggers coming to essentially the same conclusion.

From their POV, Maliki's proclamations of a "great victory over the Americans" should be taken as an Islamic/Iranian victory over us, and thus we lost what we shoulda won, and it's a terrible thing, etc., but the analysis remains pretty much the same.

[Gary Farber]

Ok, and having now read the complete Reese piece (um, yummy, may I have some more, please?), it all sounds entirely right to me.

[Eric Martin]

Yeah, I was impressed with this, and have heard similar chatter from right-leaning mil types.

[Gary Farber]

See also this Michael Gordon (one of the Times better military reporters) piece on Reese. (I can't help laughing every time I put those two rhyming words together, though.)

[Gary Farber]

Gordon points out:

[...] Before deploying to Iraq, Colonel Reese served as the director of the Combat Studies Institute at Fort Leavenworth, the Army’s premier intellectual center. He was an author of an official Army history of the Iraq war — “On Point II” — that was sharply critical of the lapses in postwar planning.

Ackerman noted that: Reese is currently "chief of the Baghdad Operations Command Advisory Team for Multinational Division-Baghdad."

If he's not in a position to know what he's talking about, who is?

[The Crafty Trilobite]

Thanks, Eric. Great link.

I am reminded, just a little, of the middle of King Lear, as it dawns on the hapless Lear that, having ceded his authority, he can no longer assert it even in the smallest things. You are a king, or you are a wastrel, nothing in between. The Iraqis are ignoring the SA because they know we can't do anything to enforce it. We have no place there now.

And this is truly great news. We can leave even sooner than expected and save the money. What say we build some light rail, or feed Africa for a year instead?

[Eric Martin]

Yeah. Rumor has it we might need to revamp our failing health care system too!

[Kali]

It's a very clear and precise analysis, that really should be listened to.

However, I'm still laughing at the mental image generated by: "They will tolerate us as long as they can suckle at Uncle Sam’s bounteous mammary glands." What a sentence!

[Eric Martin]

Yeah, that was a doozy...

[CCarp]

OT: Here's a note on the GTMO prisoner ordered freed today. http://www.scotusblog.com/wp/afghan-ordered-freed-trial-unsure/ I haven't seen anything on the guy ordered freed yesterday.

[Gary Farber]

Thanks, CharleyC.

[Tony P.]

Col. Reese's pieces apparently include commentary on US health care reform. TPM

--TP

[Gary Farber]

Thanks more, Charley C.

[Eric Martin]

Yeah, pretty bad.

But then, that's not particularly surprising or damning. The guy's a military man, and apparently has a good reputation in the military community. That doesn't make him particularly well-versed on the issue of health care.

Further, as Gary alluded to upthread, this is an increasingly popular stance amongst right-leaning mil blogger types. To which I say: to the good!

Just because he's a rightwinger, doesn't mean he's wrong.

[bob h]

Not to mention that Iraq will soon enough be out of sight and out of mind for Americans. No one really will care what they do to one another, and since they will be unlikely hosts for Al Qaeda, they won't pose any threat to us.

[Marty]

Thanks Eric, great post. There are some things most of us can agree on!

[Gary Farber]

"Not to mention that Iraq will soon enough be out of sight and out of mind for Americans. No one really will care what they do to one another, and since they will be unlikely hosts for Al Qaeda, they won't pose any threat to us."

Like in 2003. (Not, mea culpa, that I said so at the time.)

[wonkie]

Well, does pulling out of Iraq mean sending those folks to Afganistan?

[jrudkis]

Of course, the author has been sucking at the US government tit for 30 years, including US government provided healthcare.

While it is true that he was required to maintain himself at a healthy weight to maintain his insurance, it seems a little funny to have such a bad vision of government provided healthcare.

[Eric Martin]

Good to hear Marty!

[Nell]

Well put, jrudkis!

Reese's memo is just a more knowledgeable and detailed elaboration of the "ungrateful wogs" line of talk that invasion opponents knew would come as soon as it became difficult to spin events as any kind of success.

Democratic members of Congress were using it during 2007 when advocating withdrawal, because it's a more politically palatable alternative to acknowledging U.S. failure (or to the acknowledging the impossibility of "success" to begin with, equally if not more unpalatable because of the way that truth call into question our whole "defense" setup and permanent-war policy).