Handing Over Control Of Iraq To The Iraqis

Baghdad, Iraq (CNN) -- Iraqi commandos showed off skills they learned from U.S. military forces, who Saturday formally handed over control of combat operations to Iraqi security forces.


The top U.S. commander in Iraq, Gen. Raymond Odierno, was on hand to watch the final American combat team, the 4th Brigade of the 2nd Infantry Division, tender responsibilities to the 6th Iraqi Army Division.


President Barack Obama has ordered the current 64,000-strong U.S. presence to be down to 50,000 by September 1.


Six U.S. brigades will remain to provide support to Iraqi soldiers and police.

CNN

I know some folks, including some assholes on the left, don't want to give President Obama any credit for this milestone. But let me tell you what I remember. I remember in 2008 then Senator Barack Obama coming out for a withdrawal timeline for Iraq. I remember President Bush and then Senator John McCain blasting him for it and saying he wanted to "cut and run". Then suddenly when the argument was getting very heated the Iraqis themselves, after Obama visited Iraq, called for our troops to withdraw and had it written into our new SOFA with them. And even then President Bush resisted and McCain opposed it. But once the Iraqis demanded it they were pushed into a corner. But lets not forget what started the dominoes falling. And the Iraqi people had confidence that if Obama won the Presidency he would in fact withdraw our troops according to the deadlines.

I'll also point out that some of the same assholes now trying to minimize this with respect to President Obama, predicted over and over that he would back off the withdrawal date and try to keep a great amount of troops in Iraq indefinitely.

Well screw you guys, Obama got it done. And there is nothing you can do or say to change that history.

For Those Who Oppose A Timeline For Withdrawal

Even though President Obama didn't actually give a timeline for withdrawal last night (he instead gave a timetable for when we would START to withdraw our troops)plenty of people on the right and even the left today are taking shots at him for doing just that. I have seen a bunch of bullshit around the net from all sides about how this might help the Taliban by letting them know all they have to do is wait us out and I think its worth excerpting a part of President Obama speech from yesterday.

Over the past several years, we have lost that balance, and failed to appreciate the connection between our national security and our economy. In the wake of an economic crisis, too many of our friends and neighbors are out of work and struggle to pay the bills, and too many Americans are worried about the future facing our children. Meanwhile, competition within the global economy has grown more fierce. So we simply cannot afford to ignore the price of these wars.

All told, by the time I took office the cost of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan approached a trillion dollars. Going forward, I am committed to addressing these costs openly and honestly. Our new approach in Afghanistan is likely to cost us roughly 30 billion dollars for the military this year, and I will work closely with Congress to address these costs as we work to bring down our deficit.

But as we end the war in Iraq and transition to Afghan responsibility, we must rebuild our strength here at home. Our prosperity provides a foundation for our power. It pays for our military. It underwrites our diplomacy. It taps the potential of our people, and allows investment in new industry. And it will allow us to compete in this century as successfully as we did in the last. That is why our troop commitment in Afghanistan cannot be open-ended – because the nation that I am most interested in building is our own.

No matter what we do in Afghanistan it can't be emphasized enough that we can not just keep spending all this money for that war with no real way to pay for it. There are some jack asses who think we should cut domestic spending to pay for this war abroad. Exactly what kind of sense does that make? As President Obama said in that last line, we should ALL be more interested in building up America than we are about building up Afghanistan. Yeah I know we bombed the shit out of them and we can continue to give them aid. But don't act like they didn't have the option of handing over Bin Ladin and avoiding a lot of that. And rebuilding Afghanistan does not require our troops to be over there in harms way.

Now I for one have thoughts on how a time line might actually be beneficial in building momentum against the Taliban eventually but that is just my opinion and may or may not work out that way. But regardless of all that the one thing that is true is that we can't keep putting this war on a credit card. So unless these same hawks like John McCain who are against a withdrawal timeline are ready to impose a hefty tax increase to pay for these wars, please do us all a favor and shut the fuck up!

It might be nice if some of the outlets who rush to kiss McCain's ass every time there is a decision on foreign policy actually point out that he ALSO was against a timetable for withdrawal in Iraq and was wrong then too. But I know that is just wishful thinking...

Its a C-O-N spiracy

For the second time in two weeks Gareth Porter is shining light on an alleged conspiracy by Generals Odierno and Petraeus along with retired General Keane to undercut President Obama's plan to withdraw from Iraq. Now I have been patiently waiting for somebody, anybody to address these allegation but the more this kind of information comes out, the more I lean towards President Obama firing their asses and finding out if it was true later. Just the appearance that they are trying to pull this off, to me sets a precedent that has to be nipped in the bud right away. And if somebody needs to be made an example of I can't think of a more deserving guy than General Odierno. Take a look and see if you see this situation the same way that I do.

WASHINGTON, Feb 9 (IPS) - The political maneuvering between President Barack Obama and his top field commanders over withdrawal from Iraq has taken a sudden new turn with the leak by CENTCOM commander Gen. David Petraeus - and a firm denial by a White House official - of an account of the Jan. 21 White House meeting suggesting that Obama had requested three different combat troop withdrawal plans with their respective associated risks, including one of 23 months.

The Petraeus account, reported by McClatchy newspapers Feb. 5 and then by the Associated Press the following day, appears to indicate that Obama is moving away from the 16-month plan he had vowed during the campaign to implement if elected. But on closer examination, it doesn't necessarily refer to any action by Obama or to anything that happened at the Jan. 21 meeting.

The real story of the leak by Petraeus is that the most powerful figure in the U.S. military has tried to shape the media coverage of Obama and combat troop withdrawal from Iraq to advance his policy agenda - and, very likely, his personal political interests as well.

snip

The military source provided the following carefully worded statement: "We were specifically asked to provide projections, assumptions and risks for the accomplishment of objectives associated with 16-, 19- and 23-month drawdown options." That was exactly the sentence published by McClatchy the following day, except that "specifically" was left out.

The source also said Petraeus, Odierno and Ambassador Ryan Crocker had already reached a "unified assessment" on the three drawdown options and had forwarded them to the chain of command.

But a White House official told IPS Monday that the Petraeus account was untrue. "The assessments of the three drawdown dates were not requested by the president," said the official, who insisted on not being identified because he had not been authorised to comment on the matter. "He never said, 'Give me three drawdown plans'."

McClatchy's Nancy Youssef reported a similar account from aides to Obama. "Obama told his advisors shortly after taking office that he remained committed to the 16-month timeframe," Youssef wrote, "but asked them to present him with the pros and cons of that and other options, without specifying dates

snip

The sentence given to this writer as well as to McClatchy bore one obvious clue that the request for the assessments of three drawdown plans did not come from Obama: the sentence used the passive voice. It also failed to explicitly state that the request in question was made during the meeting with Obama.

Petraeus did not respond to a request through the intermediary to say who requested the studies and whether they had been proposed by the military commanders themselves. McClatchy's Youssef also noted that it is "unclear who came up with the idea..." of the 19- and 23-month withdrawal plans.

By implying that Obama had requested the three plans without saying so explicitly, the sentence leaked by Petraeus seems to have been calculated to create a misleading story.

snip

But the Petraeus leak also serves to promote the idea that Obama is moving away from his campaign pledge on a 16-month combat troop withdrawal, which has already been the dominant theme in news media coverage of the issue. That idea would also justify continued sniping by military officers at the Obama 16-month plan as too risky.

snip

On top of the interest of Petraeus and other senior officers in keeping U.S. troops in Iraq for as long as possible, Petraeus has personal political interests at stake in the struggle over Iraq policy. He has been widely regarded as a possible Republican Presidential candidate in 2012.

If General Petraeus wants to run for President in 2012, I say President Obama should do him a favor and cut his ass loose so he can have all the time in the world to get ready for his campaign instead of spending his time fucking up Obama's foreign policy.

Treason

This is a very disturbing report from Gareth Porter in IPS. If ANY of this is true, President Obama should summarily and expeditiously bring all of these bastards from General Petraeus to General Odeirno to anybody in between and shit can their asses and publicly repudiate them. I will withhold final judgment until this story is more fully vetted but right now I am fucking appalled that anything like this could possibly be going on right now. Just to give you a sample.

Obama's decision to override Petraeus's recommendation has not ended the conflict between the president and senior military officers over troop withdrawal, however. There are indications that Petraeus and his allies in the military and the Pentagon, including Gen. Ray Odierno, now the top commander in Iraq, have already begun to try to pressure Obama to change his withdrawal policy. A network of senior military officers is also reported to be preparing to support Petraeus and Odierno by mobilising public opinion against Obama's decision.

snip

The first clear indication of the intention of Petraeus, Odierno and their allies to try to get Obama to amend his decision came on Jan. 29 when the New York Times published an interview with Odierno, ostensibly based on the premise that Obama had indicated that he was "open to alternatives".

The Times reported that Odierno had "developed a plan that would move slower than Mr. Obama's campaign timetable" and had suggested in an interview "it might take the rest of the year to determine exactly when United States forces could be drawn down significantly".

The opening argument by the Petraeus-Odierno faction against Obama's withdrawal policy was revealed the evening of the Jan. 21 meeting when retired Army Gen. Jack Keane, one of the authors of the Bush troop surge policy and a close political ally and mentor of Gen. Petraeus, appeared on the Lehrer News Hour to comment on Obama's pledge on Iraq combat troop withdrawal.

Keane, who had certainly been briefed by Petraeus on the outcome of the Oval Office meeting, argued that implementing such a withdrawal of combat troops would "increase the risk rather dramatically over the 16 months". He asserted that it would jeopardise the "stable political situation in Iraq" and called that risk "not acceptable".

The assertion that Obama's withdrawal policy threatens the gains allegedly won by the Bush surge and Petraeus's strategy in Iraq will apparently be the theme of the campaign that military opponents are now planning.

snip

The source says the network, which includes senior active duty officers in the Pentagon, will begin making the argument to journalists covering the Pentagon that Obama's withdrawal policy risks an eventual collapse in Iraq. That would raise the political cost to Obama of sticking to his withdrawal policy.

If Obama does not change the policy, according to the source, they hope to have planted the seeds of a future political narrative blaming his withdrawal policy for the "collapse" they expect in an Iraq without U.S. troops.

That line seems likely to appeal to reporters covering the Iraq troop withdrawal issue. Ever since Obama's inauguration, media coverage of the issue has treated Obama' s 16-month withdrawal proposal as a concession to anti-war sentiment which will have to be adjusted to the "realities" as defined by the advice to Obama from Gates, Petreaus and Odierno.

snip

Keane had operated on the assumption that a Democratic president would probably not take the political risk of rejecting Petraeus's recommendation on the pace of troop withdrawal from Iraq. Woodward quotes Keane as telling Gates, "Let's assume we have a Democratic administration and they want to pull this thing out quickly, and now they have to deal with General Petraeus and General Odierno. There will be a price to be paid to override them."

I don't know about you but that looks clearly like a plan for out and out treason. Firing their asses would be the least I would advise President Obama to do if this is found to be true. Prosecutions would be and should be on the table. I would love to see what the wingnuts would say if they EVER got wind of this kind of a conspiracy against a Republican President. I would bet the words "drawn and quartered" would enter the conversation.

I would say there were a few bright spots in the article for those who irrationally believe that President Obama is a pushover.

Petraeus was visibly unhappy when he left the Oval Office, according to one of the sources. A White House staffer present at the meeting was quoted by the source as saying, "Petraeus made the mistake of thinking he was still dealing with George Bush instead of with Barack Obama."

Still this kind of a story demand that some kind of action be taken to get to the validity of it. Hopefully somebody will get to the bottom of it and if its found to be true appropriate action will be taken.