Article

2009-01-22 Iraq

Iraq willing to see US troops leave early

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Posted by Steve White 2009-01-22 00:00|| || Front Page|| [1 views ] Top

#1 Many of them expressed hope that the departure of the president who launched the Iraq war in 2003 would speed the return of peace.

WTF? Bringing in a rookie who obviously had terrible judgement about the whole thing will "speed the return of peace" between parties slugging it out for their own reasons?

OK, I get it.

With a real administration in power in the US, it was not difficult to imagine the SOFA being re-visited (by mutual request) somewhere in late 2010, with a view to extending the US presence. Now, the prospect of a strategic stumble looms. Bumbling away our position in Iraq (a political, not just geographic, position) would certainly be a fine tribute to the thousands who've sacrificed to advance our interests there.

Nausea is only prevented by lingering incredulity at the situation.

Posted by Verlaine 2009-01-22 02:03|| 2009-01-22 02:03|| Front Page Top

#2 The US military knew from the start that the odds were high that eventually either the congress or the POTUS would turn chicken, or worse, mismanage things horribly. They still remember, and are as bitter as hell, about the Vietnam betrayal (Vets really have short memories, don't they, Jane Fonda and John Kerry?)

So working off that assumption, the trained the Iraqis from day 1 to be completely self sufficient and on their own. Right now, the best I can tell is that their biggest weakness is in air defenses (aircraft and missile), and the lack of a combat air force. Right now they are bidding for 36 F-16s.

Both of these, we had to hold off on, in case Israel was going to attack Iran. And we have protected their airspace with PAC-3 and Patriot systems--but Bambi could pull both of those out.

Seeing the problem ahead of time is why Israel now has that loaner X-band radar. If Bambi tries to pull that out, Israel can just shrug and say that if attacked, they will use nuclear weapons and obliterate the Muslim world.

Posted by Anonymoose 2009-01-22 08:45|| 2009-01-22 08:45|| Front Page Top

#3 the Iraq army's biggest problems are logistics, corruption, and payroll. Need to get these figured out before they can be worth a darn. Same problems the Sth. Viet. had.

Posted by bman 2009-01-22 10:46|| 2009-01-22 10:46|| Front Page Top

#4 I suspect this is all semantics from the Iraqi side and misinformation from the AP.

Iraq's Army can handle an insurgency, but not a conventional invasion. They will continue to be dependent on us until they can. The challenge is especially difficult because Iran outnumbers them by 3:1, Turkey outnumbers them by 2.5:1 etc. Very simply every Iraqi soldier will need to be 4-5 times as good as his enemies in order to defend the country.

The other major issue is that their Air Force consists of a few prop driven planes. A jet pilot can be trained in a couple of years, but it's going to take a minimum of 10 years to set up a competent air defence network. Until that happens, they will be dependent of the U.S. of A.

Posted by Frozen Al 2009-01-22 11:42|| 2009-01-22 11:42|| Front Page Top

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