Jul

Washington Post Raining on Barack’s Iraq Withdrawal Parade

Posted by: Mike's America @ 5:15 pm in Uncategorized | 0 views

It seems Iraqi leaders DO NOT endorse Obama’s plan after all!

In Wednesday’s Washington Post it was a threefer slam on Obama’s plan for withdrawal from Iraq. First, Dan Balz informs readers that Obama’s plan for withdrawal was opposed by General Petraeus in their meetings. After years of Democrats insisting we must “listen to the generals” it seems Obama may not have been so eager to hear what Petraeus had to say.

But it gets better than that. For readers who make it all the way to the editorial page (unfortunately, this leaves out most of Obama’s voters) it’s a double slam. Starting with the editorial which repeats the Petraeus concerns and goes further:

Mr. Obama in Iraq
Did he really find support for his withdrawal plan?
Washington Post
Wednesday, July 23, 2008; Page A14

THE INITIAL MEDIA coverage of Barack Obama’s visit to Iraq suggested that the Democratic candidate found agreement with his plan to withdraw all U.S. combat forces on a 16-month timetable. So it seems worthwhile to point out that, by Mr. Obama’s own account, neither U.S. commanders nor Iraq’s principal political leaders actually support his strategy.
…
Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, who has a history of tailoring his public statements for political purposes, made headlines by saying he would support a withdrawal of American forces by 2010. But an Iraqi government statement made clear that Mr. Maliki’s timetable would extend at least seven months beyond Mr. Obama’s. More significant, it would be “a timetable which Iraqis set” — not the Washington-imposed schedule that Mr. Obama has in mind. It would also be conditioned on the readiness of Iraqi forces, the same linkage that Gen. Petraeus seeks. As Mr. Obama put it, Mr. Maliki “wants some flexibility in terms of how that’s carried out.”

Other Iraqi leaders were more directly critical. As Mr. Obama acknowledged, Sunni leaders in Anbar province told him that American troops are essential to maintaining the peace among Iraq’s rival sects and said they were worried about a rapid drawdown.

Obama stated in Iraq that the 16 month withdrawal timeline, which is sacrosanct to his core followers, might indeed be adjusted…. once the election is over and Obama wins.

The Post editorial continues

[Obama] denied being “so rigid and stubborn that I ignore anything that happens during the course of the 16 months,” though this would be more reassuring if Mr. Obama were not rigidly and stubbornly maintaining his opposition to the successful “surge” of the past 16 months. He also pointed out that he had “deliberately avoided providing a particular number” for the residual force of Americans he says would be left behind.

Yet Mr. Obama’s account of his strategic vision remains eccentric. He insists that Afghanistan is “the central front” for the United States, along with the border areas of Pakistan. But there are no known al-Qaeda bases in Afghanistan, and any additional U.S. forces sent there would not be able to operate in the Pakistani territories where Osama bin Laden is headquartered. While the United States has an interest in preventing the resurgence of the Afghan Taliban, the country’s strategic importance pales beside that of Iraq, which lies at the geopolitical center of the Middle East and contains some of the world’s largest oil reserves. If Mr. Obama’s antiwar stance has blinded him to those realities, that could prove far more debilitating to him as president than any particular timetable.

And to complete the Post’s triple Obama whack, Max Boot, from the Council on Foreign Relations and a foreign policy adviser to Sen. John McCain’s campaign adds this:

Behind Maliki’s Games
By Max Boot
Washington Post
Wednesday, July 23, 2008; Page A15

There is some irony in the fact that Democrats, after years of deriding Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki as a hopeless bungler and conniving Shiite sectarian, are now treating as sacrosanct his suggestion that Iraq will be ready to assume responsibility for its own security by 2010. Naturally this is because his position seems to support that of Barack Obama.

A little skepticism is in order here. The prime minister has political motives for what he’s saying — whatever that is.
…
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.
…
But 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.

What would happen if we were to pull out much faster, on a 16-month timetable? Maj. Gen. Jeffrey Hammond, commander of coalition forces in Baghdad, says that would be “very dangerous” — the same words used by Adm. Mike Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.

Of course, if the Iraqi government tells us to leave, we will have to leave. But, the prime minister’s ambiguous comments notwithstanding, the Iraqi government is saying no such thing, because most Iraqis realize that the gains of the surge are fragile and could be undone by a too-rapid departure of U.S. forces.

Yes, isn’t it funny that after years of referring to Maliki as Bush’s “puppet” the left all of a sudden embraces him when they falsely think he has endorsed Obama’s plan for ~~defeat~~ withdrawal in Iraq?

It reminds me of what happened when military units were training for Bill Clinton’s first inauguration. While U.S. Air Force jets did a rehearsal flyover, one new Clinton aide complained that the military was trying to horn in on their celebration. Another aide corrected her saying “those are OUR jets now.”

Well, Obama hasn’t been elected and Maliki isn’t their puppet! Ever heard of the saying: Don’t count your chickens before they are hatched?

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6 comments so far

Scott

That’s odd. HUNDREDS of media people following him around the world, the central point of discussion is his Iraq plan, and no one asks him about his 2013 pledge?

OBAMA RECORD
Refuses to Pledge to Get Our Troops Out by 2013, the End Of His First Term
RUSSERT: “Will you pledge that by January 2013, the end of your first term, more than five years from now, there will be no U.S. troops in Iraq?”

OBAMA: “I think it’s hard to project four years from now, and I think it would be irresponsible. We don’t know what contingency will be out there.

What I can promise is that if there are still troops in Iraq when I take office — which it appears there may be, unless we can get some of our Republican colleagues to change their mind and cut off funding without a timetable — if there’s no timetable — then I will drastically reduce our presence there to the mission of protecting our embassy, protecting our civilians, and making sure that we’re carrying out counterterrorism activities there. I believe that we should have all our troops out by 2013, but I don’t want to make promises, not knowing what the situation’s going to be three or four years out.”
– From 9/26 DNC Debate at Dartmouth College in Hanover, New Hampshire.

Tim Russert where are you when we need you most?

July 23rd, 2008 at 5:43 pm

Adrian Soto

Is it any wonder BO no longer wants to debate the issues. Take away his script and he stumbles and bumbles in his speech.

But more importantly, BO does not have top level security clearance. There is no way that Mr. BO is or ever has been privy to the hard facts upon which military decisions are made on Iraq by our President Bush, military leaders and commanders.

BO is NOT being provided any confidential information on Iraq. He very well may NOT be elected. And, as such, he is merely a citizen and Senator, but nothing else. Neither the military nor the al-Maliki administration will provide BO with the hard facts as they pertain to the reason the U.S. military must remain in Iraq for several years. But what is certain is what the generals have said openly; that the United States military will stay in Iraq until both internal-domestic and national security can be defended by the Iraqi military — this may take several years.

The whole Obama panacea has turned absolutely sour for him. He’s in denial about the success of the surge in Iraq. But this flop, no 16 months end-the-war hype, is not any different than his seemingly minor flip-flops on other issues. This flop, however, is a major blunder. It may very well spell out a doom scenario for Obama. Saying he will bring all troops home and end the war while he’s saying we need to move more troops elsewhere and continue the war shows that he is neither a great thinker nor a leader of any kind. His inexperience coupled with misguided advise from his handlers has produced a disgrace moment for Obama.

But let’s wait to see what Obama says on his return from his quick trip. At the very least he will make some pronouncement on his quick trip and his “refined” position, which will serve to distance him from his “we’ll vote for Ralph Nader” followers. His carnival trip is no less than a freak-show sample of his lack of experience, and certainly his lack of seriousness on foreign policy issues. For surely it takes great amount of time, thought and contemplation to make pronouncements on grave matters such as the war and troop withdrawals. On total he will have had only a few hours of face-to-face experience visiting Iraq and Afghanistan personages. Now his arrogance and self delusion will no doubt bring him to a very low point.

http://www.nextgenerationcorp.com/nextgenblog/

July 23rd, 2008 at 7:40 pm

Gregory Dittman

There is a reason why Obama isn’t being questioned about such things on his trip even though reporters are following him. Obama is not holding press conferences or taking questions from real reporters.
realclearpolitics.com…

July 23rd, 2008 at 8:07 pm

Mike's America

Three excellent clips from that article Gregory:

Poor John McCain. He’s so last-century. Still living in a world in which deeds matter, policies matter, what you would actually do with the power entrusted to you matters.
…
McCain’s approach is all so, well, cognitive. McCain thinks that reality is something that really exists, that has to be dealt with, instead of recognizing that we live in a Brave New World where highly paid symbolic analysts construct reality by manipulating symbols.
…
President Obama, if that’s our future, and his team of symbolic analysts will find out soon enough there are realities out there which none of his contrivances are going to be able to help him handle.

More important, so will we.

SHUDDER!!!

July 23rd, 2008 at 8:20 pm

wordsmith

Here’s another great perspective, posted by Omar at Iraq the Model:

Obama is lucky in that his host, Prime Minister Maliki, is also going through an election season. He’s even luckier that Maliki has been convinced by the close circle around him that Obama is going to win the American presidential race.

The state-owned Al-Sabah quoted a senior official, who spoke on condition of anonymity due to the sensitivity of the subject, as saying: “The change in the prime minister’s position has to do with his own perception of the political developments in the United States…Maliki thinks that Obama is most likely to win in the presidential election and that he will withdraw his country’s troops from Iraq as he pledged in his campaign.” The official added that Maliki sees that “he’s got to take preemptive steps before Obama gets to the White House.”

This is why both men have appeared to be in perfect harmony recently; one lending generous support to the other. But this is not solid harmony because both men are acting like this due to mere speculations and/or flawed advice from their aides during critical moments in election seasons. Maliki, for example, knows very well that had Obama’s vision for Iraq been adopted two years ago, he wouldn’t be enjoying the position and power he does today, and the progress in Iraq wouldn’t have been achieved.

The call for disengagement in the way Obama proposes (and Maliki cautiously endorses) is based on a vision that goes no further than the upcoming elections in both countries and thus an indicator of dangerous selfishness. The two men are gambling with victory against true enemies of their nations in the hope of achieving victory against personal electoral foes. The obvious confusion in Maliki’s recent statements forced government spokesmen and top officials to appear several times to correct or retract what he said. This indicates that much of what Maliki is saying these days is for personal/partisan electoral purposes and does not represent the strategy of the state of Iraq.

August 1st, 2008 at 10:12 am

MataHarley

Was just reading that yesterday myself, Word. Thought it ironic that most poo poo the notion that alot of Maliki’s support for the withdrawal time table, with conditions, and media misrepresentaiton of his words as support for Obama when both candidates are planning withdrawals, is politically expedient in nature.

Glad you posted it. I’ve been too busy to.

August 1st, 2008 at 12:02 pm