[Fresh Ink] Phyllis Bennis on troop withdrawal from Iraq

[Richard Menec]

http://www.fpif.org/fpiftxt/5910

Foreign Policy In Focus                February 27, 2009

Obama to Announce Iraq Troop Withdrawal

By Phyllis Bennis

President Barack Obama said directly that he would be announcing "a way
forward in Iraq that leaves Iraq to its people and responsibly ends this
war." As far as it goes, that sounds good. This is an indication that
President Obama is largely keeping to his campaign promises, and that's a
hopeful sign, reflecting the power of the anti-war consensus in this
country.

If this plan were actually a first step towards the unequivocal goal of a
complete end to the U.S. occupation of Iraq, it would be better than good,
it would be fabulous. But that would mean this withdrawal would be the first
step towards a complete withdrawal of all U.S. troops, pulling out of all
the 150,000+ U.S.-paid foreign mercenaries and contractors, closing all the
U.S. military bases, and ending all U.S. efforts to control Iraqi oil.

So far that is not on Obama's agenda.

The troop withdrawal as planned would leave behind as many as 50,000 U.S.
troops. That's an awful lot. Even Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi thinks
that may be too much. She told Rachel Maddow, "I don't know what the
justification is for 50,000, at the present...I would think a third of that,
maybe 20,000, a little more than a third, 15,000 or 20,000."

Those troops won't include officially designated "combat" troops. But those
tens of thousands of troops will still be occupying Iraq. Doing what? Very
likely, just what combat troops do - they would walk and talk and bomb and
shoot like combat troops, but they'd be called something else. The New York
Times spelled it out last December: describing how military planners believe
Obama's goal of pulling out combat troops 'could be accomplished at least in
part by re-labeling some units, so that those currently counted as combat
troops could be 're-missioned,' their efforts redefined as training and
support for the Iraqis.' That would mean a retreat to the lies and deception
that characterized this war during Bush years - something President Obama
promised to leave behind. It would also mean military resistance in Iraq
would continue, leading to more Iraqi and U.S. casualties.

Further, the U.S. agreement with Iraq calls for all U.S. forces to be out of
Iraq by the end of December
2011. President Obama's announcement later this week may even reflect
something like this goal too. But. The agreement can be changed. Retired
General Barry McCaffrey wrote an internal report for the Pentagon after a
trip to Iraq last year, saying, 'We should assume that the Iraqi government
will eventually ask us to stay beyond 2011 with a residual force of
trainers, counterterrorist capabilities, logistics, and air power." My
estimate? Perhaps a force of 20,000 to
40,000 troops.

And what if the reduction in ground troops is answered with an escalation of
U.S. air power? The U.S. appears to be planning to control the skies over
Iraq for years to come. That means even more Iraqi civilians being killed by
the U.S. military. We need the withdraw all air and naval forces too -
something the SOFA agreement mentions, but we have yet to hear anything from
the Obama administration. The U.S. has been conducting continuous
overflights and regular bombing of Iraq since January 1991 - isn't 18 years
of air war enough?

The U.S.-Iraq agreement (which was ratified by the Iraqi parliament but
never brought to the U.S. Senate for ratification, as mandated by the
Constitution) also requires that a national referendum be held in Iraq
during the summer of 2009 to approve or reject the timetable. It is
certainly possible that - if the referendum is held at all - a vast majority
of Iraqis would call for an even earlier timeline, saying that
two-and-a-half more years of occupation is too long. And it seems a real
long-shot to imagine that the U.S. - despite the Obama administration's
commitment to diplomacy over force - would agree to abide by the popular
will of the Iraqi people and pull out the troops immediately.

The military hasn't been transformed with the election of President Obama.
He is the commander in chief, but he has made clear his intention to listen
to his military advisers (they pushed for the 19-month rather than 16-month
withdrawal timeline). The oil companies and powerful contractors whose CEOs
and stockholders have made billion dollar killings on Iraq contracts have
not been transformed. Obama is president and has promised transparency in
the contracting process, but he hasn't promised to bring home all the
mercenaries and contractors.

Mercenaries and Contractors

Ending the U.S. occupation means ending all U.S. funding for the giant
contractors - Dyncorp, Bechtel, Blackwater - that serve as out-sourced
private unaccountable components of the U.S. military. The contractor
companies - and the mercenaries they hire - were part of what led to Abu
Ghraib. (Blackwater's recent name change to "Xe" should not allow its role
in killing Iraqi civilians to be forgotten.) Even as some troops may be
withdrawn, we will need to mobilize for congressional hearings, independent
investigations, and more on the human rights violations and misuse of
taxpayer funds by the war profiteers who run these companies. President
Obama's decision to close the Guantanamo prison shows his awareness of
severity of the crimes committed there. Ending the funding of the
contractors who carried out so many of those crimes should be a logical next
step.

U.S. Military Bases

We've heard how long it will likely take to evacuate each of the 50+ U.S.
military bases in Iraq (6 weeks for the small ones, 18 months for the
biggest) but we haven't heard any indication, let alone a promise, that they
will actually be turned over to the Iraqis. The issue of bases places Iraq
at the centerpiece of the broad global movement challenging the network of
U.S. military bases all over the world. Opposition to the impact of those
bases - environmental, social and women's rights, economic and more - is
rising in countries as diverse as Korea, Italy, Ecuador, Kyrgyzstan and
more. In fact in some countries governments are joining with civil society
to reject Washington's global crusade. Kyrgyzstan decided to close the U.S.
air base there, indicating they prefer Russian bribes to U.S. warplanes.
(That decision may present the Obama administration with the unsavory
prospect of renewing the U.S. alliance with Uzbekistan, whose government is
characterized by some of the most egregious human rights violations in the
world.) Ecuador has recently passed a new constitution prohibiting the
presence of foreign military bases on their soil, and is in the process of
ending its hosting of the U.S. airbase at Manta.

As the Obama administration seeks new ways to cut military spending, closing
the 50+ Iraqi bases, particularly the five mega-bases becomes an urgent
necessity. And the giant embassy-on-steroids that the Bush administration
built to house up to 5,000 U.S. diplomats and officials should be closed
down as a relic of an illegal war launched to maintain control of the
country, people and resources of Iraq. Ending Occupation?

Certainly almost three more years of acknowledged occupation is way too
long. That's almost half again as long as the U.S. occupation of Iraq has
been going today. But even so, if this 19-month partial withdrawal really
was a first step towards a complete end of the Iraq war and occupation, if
this really meant that the troops in Iraq would be brought home instead of
redeployed to another failing war in Afghanistan, if this really meant that
President Obama's promise that "I will end the war" was about to be made
real - then
19 months wouldn't be so bad.

Then, at last, we could begin making good on our real debt to the people of
Iraq. Make good on the U.S. obligations for compensation (money to Iraqis
themselves, not to overpaid U.S. contractors), for reparations (including
for the years of society- destroying economic sanctions), for support for
Iraqi- led international help in peacekeeping and in demilitarizing Iraq
after so many years of occupation and war.

So far, though, we're not seeing any of that. So far, there are too many
"buts." We know there is no military solution in Iraq - and continuing an
"occupation lite" to muscle out competitors in oil contracts, or to maintain
a power-expansion presence in the region, or to create the illusion of
"peace with honor" - none of these things justify continuing an illegal U.S.
occupation. Pulling out any troops from Iraq is a good thing. But so far,
our job hasn't ended - to mobilize, to pressure, to continue to educate and
advocate and agitate for a real end to the war. We have a lot of work to do.
____

Phyllis Bennis is director of the New Internationalism Project at the
Institute for Policy Studies, a senior analyst for Foreign Policy In Focus,
and a fellow at the Transnational Institute in Amsterdam.

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