The Story No One’s Reading
By Ben Giles | July 23, 2008
After spending the afternoon moping around in disgust and fear over Barack Obama’s comments at a press conference in the Middle East, I finally found some consolation. The Washington Post’s Max Boot provides an excellent analysis of Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki’s supposed “support” of Obama’s 16 month timetable for withdrawal of troops from the country.
In the same way Obama deftly sidesteps the issues on which he is clearly wrong, like the troop surge being responsible for restoring order to Iraq, Boot suggests that Maliki’s statement is simply a political one, not a correct one.
Keep in mind also that Maliki has no military experience
and that he has been trapped in the Green
Zone, relatively isolated from day-to-day life. For these reasons, he has
been a consistent font of misguided predictions about how quickly U.S. forces
could leave.
In May 2006, shortly after becoming prime minister, he
claimed, "Our forces are capable of taking over the security in all Iraqi
provinces within a year and a half."
In October 2006, when violence was spinning out of
control, Maliki declared that it would be "only a matter of months"
before his security forces could "take over the security portfolio
entirely and keep some multinational forces only in a supporting role."
President
Bush wisely ignored Maliki. Instead of withdrawing U.S. troops, he
sent more. The prime minister wasn't happy. On Dec. 15, 2006, the Wall
Street Journal reported, "Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki has
flatly told Gen. George
Casey, the top American
military commander in Iraq, that he doesn't want more U.S. personnel
deployed to the country, according to U.S. military officials." When the
surge went ahead anyway, Maliki gave it an endorsement described in news
accounts as "lukewarm."
In January 2007, with the surge just starting, Maliki
predicted "that within three to six months our need for the American
troops will dramatically go down." In April 2007, when most of Baghdad was still out of
control, the prime minister said that Iraqi forces would assume control of
security in every province by the end of the year.
Even now, when the success of the surge is undeniable,
Maliki won't give U.S.
troops their due. In the famous interview with Der
Spiegel last weekend, he was asked why Iraq has become more peaceful. He
mentioned "many factors," including "the political rapprochement
we have managed to achieve," "the progress being made by our security
forces," "the deep sense of abhorrence with which the population has
reacted to the atrocities of al-Qaida and the militias," and "the economic recovery." No mention of
the surge.
Somebody sounds a lot like Obama, doesn’t he? It gets better.
Maliki's public utterances do not provide a reliable guide as to when it will be safe to pull out U.S. troops. Better to listen to the military professionals. The Post recently quoted Brig. Gen. Bilal al-Dayni, commander of Iraqi troops in Basra, as saying of the Americans, "We hope they will stay until 2020." That is similar to the expectation of Iraq's defense minister, Abdul Qadir, who says his forces cannot assume full responsibility for internal security until 2012 and for external security until 2018.
The fact is, other than Maliki’s brazen, outspoken comments
about withdrawal of American troops by 2010, most Iraqi’s release that certain
factors have to met, especially a confidence in Iraqi police and military
forces to protect the country and its people.
Obama would never concede this.
Click here for the full article.
Ben Giles is an intern at the American Journalism Center, a training program run by Accuracy in Media and Accuracy in Academia.
4 Comments | Post a Comment
We pulled out of Vietnam and the NVA established the current government there. If Obama and McCain are not qualified, then who is?
You can have 1 million troops on the ground but if you try to fight an insurgency with conventional warfare methods, you will lose every time. We failed in Vietnam because we failed to win public opinion of the Vietnamese and did not imploy necessary counter-insurgency strategies.
We were losing Iraq for the same reasons but a change in strategy, coupled with a General that understands unconventional warfare and a surge in forces has turned the war around into our favor. Like it or not, but we are winning and if we pull out prematurely, we will lose.
What did our efforts in Haiti, Somahlia and Kosovo do for us?
Fred Miles,
you forgot to mention that half those Vietnamese were slaughtered by the North Vietnamese AFTER we left. You also conveniently forgot that about 2 MILLION Cambodians were executed by their own Commies after we left!!
Why don’t you give us your best re writing history estimate of how many Iragis would have been slaughtered if we had pulled out of Iraq instead of executing the surge?
That won’t even include the huge increase in recruitment the Jihadis would have benefited from if we had RUN AGAIN!!!!
When you remove your head from that dark orifice you just might have the ability to research REALITY instead of the Leftist Propaganda you have obviously been immersed in!!
I have served in the USAF during the Vietnam era and the California National Guard during Iraq. You might try serving your country by learning its true history.
Fred, with all due respect, what does your comment have top do with Giles’ article? I realize you’re angry that we are in Iraq at all, but the article simply points out that the Iraqui leader whose opinion confirms Sen. Obama’s “out iin 16 months” plan doesn’t know as much as the average american might believe he knows about what’s going on in the military conflict in his country.
And I have to ask you, seriously (because I was like 5 years old when Viet Nam was being fought) were most of those 3.5 million dead Vietnamese alive when we were still there?
July 24 at 3:25 am | #1 | Link
What a Crock-O-Bushit. Neither Obama or McCain are qualified to the Office of President to end this Neocon Imperialist Anti-American Ethic War.
There were 500,000 of us in Vietnam an the result was 58,000 U.S. to 3,500,000 Vietnamese DEAD.
For what? A stable Governmant of a small Nation that today has more Corporate Business than it did when the French Occupied it. Iraq isn’t much different, install a puppet Government that does Not reflect the culture of the People nor its Rights to profit The Corporate and protect Israel
at the expense of The Life Blood and Treasury of America.
Suggest YOU put on the Uniform and go there, or get a real wage slave job and help rebuild this Nation before you Cheerlead it further into the Abyss.