U.S. Seen in Iraq Until at Least ’09

New York Times ^ | July 24, 2007 | MICHAEL R. GORDON

[Joe Voter]

BAGHDAD, July 23 — While Washington is mired in political debate over the future of Iraq, the American command here has prepared a detailed plan that foresees a significant American role for the next two years.

The classified plan, which represents the coordinated strategy of the top American commander and the American ambassador, calls for restoring security in local areas, including Baghdad, by the summer of 2008. “Sustainable security” is to be established on a nationwide basis by the summer of 2009, according to American officials familiar with the document.

[bnelson44]

The latest plan does not explicitly address troop levels or withdrawal schedules. It anticipates a decline in American forces as the “surge” in troops runs its course later this year or in early 2008. But it nonetheless assumes continued American involvement to train soldiers, act as partners with Iraqi forces and fight terrorist groups in Iraq, American officials said.

Where have I heard that before?

[Dan Nunn]

The classified plan, which represents the coordinated strategy of the top American commander and the American ambassador

Where have I heard that before?

[tobyhill]

I’ll bet we’re in Iraq for the next 20 years, 30,000-40,000 troops, using bases there as reactionary force bases for anything that may pop up in the middle-east.

[jim-x]

I would hope that the author, Michael Gordon, has already had his visa revoked and is in Kuwait or Jordan, awaiting transportation back to New York.

He should be charged with revealing classified information. It is still a crime, regardless of who does it.

[brigadoon]

There’s a simple rule for knowing when to leave Iraq, or any other country we’ve conquered: When Iraq has its own baseball league. Until then, it hasn’t been properly Americanized, and the mission isn’t accomplished.

[TWohlford]

Uh, we’re gonna be there until at least 2013 too.

How long have we been in Yugoslavia? How long was the UN in Cyprus? How long have we been in Haiti?

We’re there gang. That corner of the world has half of the word’s known oil reserves, and we CAN NOT walk away from that.

[pissant]

We’ll have bases there for decades.

[bnelson44]

Hillary is talking about a pull out of one brigade a month. There are 150,000 troops in Iraq. A brigade is about 3,000 troops. So she is talking about 50 months. And she is talking about a pull out.

My guess is that something like this NY Times article is what will end up happening in Iraq.

[pissant]

We will right our own ticket along with teh government of IRaq. We certainly will pull alot of folks out, but not for the chicken shit reasons the dems think.

[CyberAnt]

I find it very interesting that in the past few days Hillary has been DEMANDING to know the Pentagon’s plans for Iraq .. low and behold .. somebody at the NYT gets the goods.

A Clinton holdover in the Pentagon just delivered to the NYT exactly what Hillary wanted to know.

We cannot allow the Clintons back in the WH - EVER!!!

[tlj18]

We've been in Germany for more than 60 years.

We've been in South Korea for almost 60 years.

There are troops currently in more than 100 countries. Pick a country at random, and it is very likely there are troops there, even if you may not know about it (such as Iran; we've been operating inside the country "secretly" for the last several years).

Yes, and since the 1970's, I believe, it has been official U.S. policy that the continued availability on demand of petroleum is critical to U.S. national security. If you think about it, you'll realize that it really is. It isn't immediately obvious. It's not critical that we get to drive SUVs. It's beyond that. The world's oil infrastructure is so brittle and on the edge of disaster that it would scare most people. A historical example: Hitler's armies during World War II tried to seize the Saudi oilfields, because his troops were chronically low on oil (you can't wage modern warfare with large quantities of the black gold). As he was about to make the final assault from Egypt after destroying our opposing forces - he stopped. Why? Ironically, the Nazi force didn't have enough oil for the attack. So it just sat there, and soon enough, it was defeated.

Going to war for oil sounds bad, and it's difficult to justify the deaths of American troops to our public who generally don't understand why it's so important (it's not for cheap oil, as they say, but just for supplies of oil itself). I do not believe we went to war in Iraq for oil. I believe the primary reasons were to stop Iraq's WMD programs (there are suggestions that Saddam was working to create nuclear weapons in Libya, just as Iran does some of their nuke work in Syria today) and block Iran from the west. But, you know, if we have large amounts of troops in Iraq, Iran, and Afghanistan, it's very convienent for securing the flow of Middle Eastern oil.

The only problem is when China attacks Taiwan. Will we help out, or not? It can happen in as little as the end of next year. It can easily escalate into a World War-scale conflict. The countries in the region (Japan, Australia...) had been planning for an eventual U.S. occupation of China in the relatively near future (next decade), but based on our experience in Iraq, they have severe doubts about a similar operation in China, so they are restructuring their strategic plans for the region.

The threat of China is one of the reasons I joined the military. But I never would have joined if we weren't at war. Even though for most people, it tends to be reversed.