9:08 | Fred Barbash-Moderator - Arena contributor Michael O'Hanlon just sent in this post: "Obama is doing the right thing. Iraq is still fragile, and
while much should continue to improve over the next 19 months, we should
remember in Yogi Berra's famous words that in Iraq, predictions are always
dangerous, especially about the future. So you need flexibility,
capability, and gradualism in policy. Let's not forget that those
watchwords have been successful over the last year; we've downsized 6 brigades
from surge levels and things have continued to get better. But even after
August 2010, we'll still need some fighting capability to protect our trainers
and aid workers and diplomatis, cooperate with Iraqis on occasional
counterterrorism, and perhaps most of all provide general peacekeeping and
general reassurance for some remaining "what ifs" such as renewed tensions in
the north between Arabs and Kurds. We will have to withdraw all of this
residual force by December 2011 anyway, according to the US-Iraq Security
Agreement negotiated last year (unless a new agreement is reached to keep a
modest US presence in place thereafter), so Obama by any fair measure is still
"ending the war" on his watch--but doing so in a generally responsible and
pragmatic and flexible way. As a longstanding prior critic of his Iraq
thinking, I say bravo
9:00 | And contributor Tom Ricks, author of "Fiasco" and "The Gamble": has this to say:
I'm puzzled by the way Speaker Pelosi talks about troop numbers. You
need certain numbers of troops to do certain things. I've looked
closely at post-occupation planning (see p. 308 of my new book)
and it is difficult to get below 35,000. That's because there are
certain minimums. One small example: if you have any troops in combat
(and we will have some fighting as long as any are in Iraq), then,
whether you have 1,000 or 50,000, you're going to need a brain surgeon.
Multiply that a thousand times--you're going to need logisticians,
intelligence support, communications, command and control from several
layers of headquarters, and so on. Pretty soon it adds up to about
35,000.
If Congress makes a big fuss about troop numbers, the military will try
to squeeze the numbers down by hiring retired military people as
contractors. I don't think that is a wise choice. And it is hugely
expensive.
|
|
