White House debates cutting troop level in Iraq by 50% by election time

[motivez]

White House Is Said to Debate ’08 Cut in Iraq Troops by 50%
By DAVID E. SANGER and DAVID S. CLOUD

WASHINGTON, May 25 — The Bush administration is developing what are described as concepts for reducing American combat forces in Iraq by as much as half next year, according to senior administration officials in the midst of the internal debate.

It is the first indication that growing political pressure is forcing the White House to turn its attention to what happens after the current troop increase runs its course.

The concepts call for a reduction in forces that could lower troop levels by the midst of the 2008 presidential election to roughly 100,000, from about 146,000, the latest available figure, which the military reported on May 1. They would also greatly scale back the mission that President Bush set for the American military when he ordered it in January to win back control of Baghdad and Anbar Province.

The mission would instead focus on the training of Iraqi troops and fighting Al Qaeda in Mesopotamia, while removing Americans from many of the counterinsurgency efforts inside Baghdad.

Still, there is no indication that Mr. Bush is preparing to call an early end to the current troop increase, and one reason officials are talking about their long-range strategy may be to blunt pressure from members of Congress, including some Republicans, who are pushing for a more rapid troop reduction.

The officials declined to be quoted for attribution because they were discussing internal deliberations that they expected to evolve over several months.

Officials say proponents of reducing the troops and scaling back their mission next year appear to include Secretary of Defense Robert M. Gates and Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice. They have been joined by generals at the Pentagon and elsewhere who have long been skeptical that the Iraqi government would use the opportunity created by the troop increase to reach genuine political accommodations.

So far, the concepts are entirely a creation of Washington and have been developed without the involvement of the top commanders in Iraq, Gen. David H. Petraeus and Lt. Gen. Raymond T. Odierno, both of whom have been enthusiastic supporters of the troop increase.

Those generals and other commanders have made it clear that they are operating on a significantly slower clock than officials in Washington, who are eager for significant withdrawals before the president leaves office in January 2009.

In an interview in Baghdad on Thursday, General Odierno, the senior United States ground commander, said any withdrawal of American troops was not advisable until December, “at a minimum.”

Even then, he said, redeployments should be carried out slowly, to avoid jeopardizing security gains.

General Odierno, who has pushed for extending the troop increase into next year, noted that units were in place or available to continue that effort through next April.

But the ideas under discussion, from the National Security Council to the Pentagon, envision reductions beginning well before then. The last time American troop levels in Iraq were anywhere near 100,000 was in January 2004, when they fell briefly to about 108,000.

One of the ideas, officials say, would be to reduce the current 20 American combat brigades to about 10, which would be completed between the spring of 2008 and the end of the year.

Several administration officials said they hoped that if such a reduction were under way in the midst of the presidential campaign, it would shift the debate from whether American forces should be pulled out by a specific deadline — the current argument consuming Washington — to what kind of long-term presence the United States should have in Iraq.

“It stems from a recognition that the current level of forces aren’t sustainable in Iraq, they aren’t sustainable in the region, and they will be increasingly unsustainable here at home,” said one administration official who has taken part in the closed-door discussions.

But other officials in Washington cautioned that any drawdown could be jeopardized by a major outbreak of new violence. Vice President Dick Cheney and others might argue that even beginning a withdrawal would embolden elements of Al Qaeda and the Shiite militias that have recently appeared to go underground.

Missing from much of the current discussion is talk about the success of democracy in Iraq, officials say, or even of the passage of reconciliation measures that Mr. Bush said in January that the troop increase would allow to take place. In interviews, many senior administration and military officials said they now doubted that those political gains, even if achieved, would significantly reduce the violence.

The officials cautioned that no firm plans have emerged from the discussions. But they said the proposals being developed envision a far smaller but long-term American presence, centering on three or four large bases around Iraq. Mr. Bush has told recent visitors to the White House that he was seeking a model similar to the American presence in South Korea.

Both Mr. Bush and Secretary Gates appeared to allude to the new ideas at separate news conferences on Thursday, though they were careful not to be specific about how or when what they are terming the post-surge phase would begin.

Mr. Gates described the administration’s goal of eventually shifting the mission in Iraq to one that is “more to train, equip, continue to go after Al Qaeda and provide support.” Such a mission, he noted, “clearly would involve fewer forces than we have now.”

Any change of course “is going to be the president’s decision,” Mr. Gates said, but one greatly influenced by assessments from General Petraeus and the new American ambassador to Iraq, Ryan C. Crocker, who are to provide an assessment of the situation in September. Mr. Gates also referred to “the possible need for some kind of residual force in Iraq for some protracted period of time.”

A rapid transfer of responsibility to Iraqi forces and withdrawal to large bases was attempted in 2005 and 2006, with disastrous results when the Iraqi units proved incapable of halting major attacks, and sectarian violence worsened.

“We’ve been here before,” General Odierno said in the interview, referring to the decisions that are coming up on how quickly to hand over authority to Iraqi units. “We’ve rushed the transition and soon lost many areas that we had before. This time it’s about having enough combat power to stay.”

But what is different now is the political environment in the United States. While Democrats in Congress relented this week and dropped demands to attach a schedule for withdrawal to a bill to finance military efforts in Iraq, White House officials concede that they have bought a few months, at best.

By the fall, they say, they are likely to lose several Republican senators and many members of the House who voted with Mr. Bush in recent weeks.

During his own news conference, Mr. Bush referred on four separate occasions to the report of the Iraq Study Group, headed by the former Secretary of State James A. Baker III and the former Congressman Lee H. Hamilton.

That report, about which Mr. Bush appeared distinctly unenthusiastic when it was issued in December, called for the withdrawal of all American combat troops by the end of March 2008. Mr. Gates was a member of the study group, though he resigned to take up his current post before the report was written.

David E. Sanger reported from Washington and David S. Cloud from Baghdad.

White House Is Said to Debate ’08 Cut in Iraq Troops by 50% - New York Times

Whatever their motivation, I'm glad there will be less troops policing the civil war in Iraq..

But it seems strange to me. They've put a lot of stock into this surge working and actually changing something, and it should be obvious by now to anyone who's been paying attention to the level of violence that it's not going to change anything..

Why would they suddenly reverse course now if not simply for political reasons around the timing of the '08 Iraq? If they truly believed the surge actually had some kind of chance at working, why would they already be planning to reduce numbers so drastically after saying the only way to win is building it up?

[JaJae]

I don't like the timing of this at all. It seems almost purposely intentional to help them in the next election. The way Iraq is handled shouldn't be done to set a political stage. I don't like it when either party does it.

Although I think it's good that they're cutting back troop numbers, it disgusts me that it seems to only be done to help a Republican candidate.

[RMNIXON]

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The White House on Saturday played down a newspaper report that the Bush administration was weighing a scenario for possibly sharp cuts in U.S. troop levels in Iraq next year.

The New York Times, citing unnamed senior U.S. officials, reported the administration was developing concepts in which U.S. combat forces would be reduced to around 100,000 by the middle of the 2008 presidential election year from close to 150,000 now.

White House spokeswoman Dana Perino noted that 30,000 extra U.S. troops for Iraq, ordered by Bush in January as part of a security crackdown, had not all arrived yet. The final wave of reinforcements is expected in mid-June.
Perino said the increase was aimed at setting the very conditions that would allow U.S. troops to return home.

"We, of course, would like to be in a position to bring down troop levels, but certain conditions, as assessed by senior military advisers and commanders on the ground, need to be met to warrant that," she said in an e-mail in response to a Reuters query.

White House plays down report of Iraq troop cut - Boston.com


Obviously they can't do anything that wont be made political!

What I have read is they will start making considerations as early as September:

WASHINGTON — A conservative Republican senator said Sunday most lawmakers believe President Bush will focus on reducing U.S. troops in Iraq once a top general reports in September on the war's progress.

Sen. Jeff Sessions, R-Ala., said any reduction will have to await a much anticipated report by Gen. David Petraeus, the top U.S. commander in Iraq, who will tell the president and Congress whether the current troop increase is working.

"By September, when General Petraeus is to make a report, I think most of the people in Congress believe, unless something extraordinary occurs, that we should be on a move to draw those surge numbers down," Sessions said.
Sessions' comment followed the recent statement by Senate Republican

Leader Mitch McConnell, who said Friday, "I think that the handwriting is on the wall that we are going in a different direction in the fall, and I expect the president to lead it."


FOXNews.com - Troop Cut Expected After Iraq Report - Politics | Republican Party | Democratic Party | Political Spectrum


Spin Cycle on full load.......

[6SpeedTA95]

Originally Posted by motivez

White House Is Said to Debate ’08 Cut in Iraq Troops by 50% - New York Times

Whatever their motivation, I'm glad there will be less troops policing the civil war in Iraq..

But it seems strange to me. They've put a lot of stock into this surge working and actually changing something, and it should be obvious by now to anyone who's been paying attention to the level of violence that it's not going to change anything..

Why would they suddenly reverse course now if not simply for political reasons around the timing of the '08 Iraq? If they truly believed the surge actually had some kind of chance at working, why would they already be planning to reduce numbers so drastically after saying the only way to win is building it up?

1) Can the new york times not do math? If there's 146,000 troops there now then decreasing it to 100,000 is about a 33% decrease not 50%. Thats a substantial number of troops. 27,000 for those who aren't math friendly (aka anyone who is reading this that may work for the NYTimes).

2) I have no problems reducing troop levels as long as it is recommeneded by the military NOT the Bush administration or the RNC.

3) How can you say the surge wont change anything? The chart that even thorgrim posted showed a clear downward trend in Iraq. Will that continue? Is it substantial enough to make the point that the surge is working?

Well time will tell us if it will continue and from a statistical standpoint, purely mathemetical standpoint it is not yet substantial enough to say with certainty the surge is working. But if we get another two or three months of attacks lessening we may have something real to talk about it.

But to say its not working is incorrect, saying it is working while not technically incorrect yet, would definately be premature.


edit: one more thing there's many people on this board that have called for a draw down in troops assuming that happens in oct/nov/dec why would these same people complain about it? it's what you've been asking for since 2005 early 2006.

[thomez]

Originally Posted by RMNIXON

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The White House on Saturday played down a newspaper report that the Bush administration was weighing a scenario for possibly sharp cuts in U.S. troop levels in Iraq next year.

The New York Times, citing unnamed senior U.S. officials, reported the administration was developing concepts in which U.S. combat forces would be reduced to around 100,000 by the middle of the 2008 presidential election year from close to 150,000 now.

White House spokeswoman Dana Perino noted that 30,000 extra U.S. troops for Iraq, ordered by Bush in January as part of a security crackdown, had not all arrived yet. The final wave of reinforcements is expected in mid-June.
Perino said the increase was aimed at setting the very conditions that would allow U.S. troops to return home.

"We, of course, would like to be in a position to bring down troop levels, but certain conditions, as assessed by senior military advisers and commanders on the ground, need to be met to warrant that," she said in an e-mail in response to a Reuters query.

White House plays down report of Iraq troop cut - Boston.com


Obviously they can't do anything that wont be made political!

What I have read is they will start making considerations as early as September:

WASHINGTON — A conservative Republican senator said Sunday most lawmakers believe President Bush will focus on reducing U.S. troops in Iraq once a top general reports in September on the war's progress.

Sen. Jeff Sessions, R-Ala., said any reduction will have to await a much anticipated report by Gen. David Petraeus, the top U.S. commander in Iraq, who will tell the president and Congress whether the current troop increase is working.

"By September, when General Petraeus is to make a report, I think most of the people in Congress believe, unless something extraordinary occurs, that we should be on a move to draw those surge numbers down," Sessions said.
Sessions' comment followed the recent statement by Senate Republican

Leader Mitch McConnell, who said Friday, "I think that the handwriting is on the wall that we are going in a different direction in the fall, and I expect the president to lead it."


FOXNews.com - Troop Cut Expected After Iraq Report - Politics | Republican Party | Democratic Party | Political Spectrum


Spin Cycle on full load.......

so are Jeff Sessions and Mitch McConnell coming out and saying the surge isn't working?! isn't that premature and doesn't it hurt the troops?

that is basically sending a green light to the enemy that if they keep up attacks until September, we are going to start to surrender!

[Scrum]

And none of those numbers include the 100K+ Blackwater types we pay a fortune to fight over there as well.

[Kytro]

Originally Posted by Scrum

And none of those numbers include the 100K+ Blackwater types we pay a fortune to fight over there as well.

Does the government hire them?

[JaJae]

Originally Posted by Kytro

Does the government hire them?

The government hires their employers, they're factored into the budget. They do security and often handle the extremely dangerous missions. And I think there's only about 15k of them in Iraq, not over 100k and they're not all American and paid for by America. But, most are.

Global security firms fill in as private armies
15,000 agents patrol violent streets of Iraq

If they die in Iraq or need medical treatment the government doesn't foot the bill like they do a regular soldier, but they are paid more then the typical soldiers on the ground.

[hsmith]

Both the Democrats and Republicans want the soldiers off the ground for political reasons. Just like the piece of shit bill the Dem's tried to get Bush to sign recently.

[Kytro]

Originally Posted by hsmith

Both the Democrats and Republicans want the soldiers off the ground for political reasons. Just like the piece of shit bill the Dem's tried to get Bush to sign recently.

They put them on the ground for political reasons, what other reasons would there be for removing them.

[thomez]

Originally Posted by Kytro

They put them on the ground for political reasons, what other reasons would there be for removing them.

supposedly they were put on the ground for national security reasons, that is very different

[Scrum]

Originally Posted by thomez

supposedly they were put on the ground for national security reasons, that is very different

And we now know that was a total lie.

[thomez]

Originally Posted by Scrum

And we now know that was a total lie.

well most people did not support them going there for political reasons

duped... you might say

[Kytro]

Originally Posted by thomez

supposedly they were put on the ground for national security reasons, that is very different

Which is obviously false. The reasons given for the conflict were not one and the same with the motivations of the administration. If they were the US would be involved in many more conflicts than they actually are.