1 Boring Old Man

U.S. Adviser’s Blunt Memo on Iraq: Time ‘to Go Home’
The New York Times
By MICHAEL R. GORDON
July 30, 2009

WASHINGTON — A senior American military adviser in Baghdad has concluded in an unusually blunt memo that Iraqi forces suffer from entrenched deficiencies but are now able to protect the Iraqi government, and that it is time “for the U.S. to declare victory and go home.” The memo offers a look at tensions that emerged between Iraqi and American military officers at a sensitive moment when American combat troops met a June 30 deadline to withdraw from Iraq’s cities, the first step toward an advisory role. The Iraqi government’s forceful moves to assert authority have concerned some American officers, though senior American officials insisted that cooperation had improved.

Prepared by Col. Timothy R. Reese, an adviser to the Iraqi military’s Baghdad command, the memorandum details Iraqi military weaknesses in scathing language, including corruption, poor management and the inability to resist Shiite political pressure. Extending the American military presence beyond August 2010, he argues, will do little to improve the Iraqis’ military performance while fueling growing resentment of Americans. “As the old saying goes, ‘Guests, like fish, begin to smell after three days,’ ” Colonel Reese wrote. “Since the signing of the 2009 Security Agreement, we are guests in Iraq, and after six years in Iraq, we now smell bad to the Iraqi nose”…

“We now have an Iraqi government that has gained its balance and thinks it knows how to ride the bike in the race,” Colonel Reese wrote. “And in fact they probably do know how to ride, at least well enough for the road they are on against their current competitors. Our hand on the back of the seat is holding them back and causing resentment. We need to let go before we both tumble to the ground”…

We invaded Iraq to keep from being destroyed by their weapons of mass destruction and to break their ties with the terrorists that attacked our country. Since they didn’t have any weapons of mass destruction and were not involved with the terrorists, our objective was met before we went. As we launched our misbegotten invasion, we renamed it Operation Iraqi Freedom – liberating Iraq from Saddam Hussein. That was accomplished in short order. We disbanded Iraq’s army, then we complained that Iraq’s army wasn’t up to snuff [brilliant]. Then we fought the Insurgents – either Iraqis who wanted us out, or foreign Jihadists flocking to Iraq to kill them some Americans. Time to call it what it is – a  F·I·A·S·C·O. One way to do that, as Reese says, is to "declare victory and go home."

Now we are "guests" in Iraq, but there’s some reticence to leave. The only reason I can think of for us to be there is the inertia of the Bush/Cheney silliness that took us there in the first place. Colonel Reese says, "Our hand on the back of the seat is holding them back and causing resentment. We need to let go before we both tumble to the ground.”