[Peace-discuss] Scahill: Obama Doesn't Plan to End the Iraq Occupation

[C. G. Estabrook]

	December 6, 2008
	Obama Doesn't Plan to End the Iraq Occupation
	by Jeremy Scahill

The New York Times is reporting about an "apparent evolution" in president-elect 
Barack Obama's thinking on Iraq, citing his recent statements about his plan to 
keep a "residual force" in the country and his pledge to "listen to the 
recommendations of my commanders" as Obama prepares to assume actual command of 
US forces. "At the Pentagon and the military headquarters in Iraq, the response 
to the statements this week from Mr. Obama and his national security team has 
been akin to the senior officer corps' letting out its collective breath," the 
Times reported. "[T]the words sounded to them like the new president would take 
a measured approach on the question of troop levels."

The reality is there is no "evolution."

Anyone who took the time to cut past Barack Obama's campaign rhetoric of 
"change" and bringing an "end" to the Iraq war realized early on that the 
now-president-elect had a plan that boiled down to a down-sizing and rebranding 
of the occupation. While he emphasized his pledge to withdraw US "combat forces" 
from Iraq in 16 months (which may or may not happen), he has always said that he 
intends to keep "residual forces" in place for the foreseeable future.

It's an interesting choice of terms. "Residual" is defined as "the quantity left 
over at the end of a process." This means that the forces Obama plans to leave 
in Iraq will remain after he has completed his "withdrawal" plan. No matter how 
Obama chooses to label the forces he keeps in Iraq, the fact is, they will be 
occupation forces.

Announcing his national security team this week, Obama reasserted his position. 
"I said that I would remove our combat troops from Iraq in 16 months, with the 
understanding that it might be necessary – likely to be necessary – to maintain 
a residual force to provide potential training, logistical support, to protect 
our civilians in Iraq." While some have portrayed this as Obama going back on 
his campaign pledge, it is not. What is new is that some people seem to just now 
be waking up to the fact that Obama never had a comprehensive plan to fully end 
the occupation. Most recently, from the New York Times:

"On the campaign trail, Senator Barack Obama offered a pledge that electrified 
and motivated his liberal base, vowing to 'end the war' in Iraq," wrote reporter 
Thom Shanker on Thursday. "But as he moves closer to the White House, 
President-elect Obama is making clearer than ever that tens of thousands of 
American troops will be left behind in Iraq, even if he can make good on his 
campaign promise to pull all combat forces out within 16 months."

For many months it's been abundantly clear that Obama's Iraq plan is at odds 
with his campaign rhetoric. Yet, Shanker writes, "to date, there has been no 
significant criticism from the antiwar left of the Democratic Party of the 
prospect that Mr. Obama will keep tens of thousands of troops in Iraq for at 
least several years to come." The Times is actually right about this, in a 
literal sense. There has seldom, if ever, been a public peep about Obama's 
residual force plans for Iraq from members of his own party, including from 
those who describe themselves as "antiwar."

But, for those who have scrutinized Obama's plans and the statements of his 
advisors from the beginning, this is old news. Obama never defined "ending the 
war" as removing all US forces from Iraq. Besides the counsel of his closest 
advisors – many of whom are pro-war hawks – Obama's Iraq plan is based on two 
primary sources: the recommendations of the Baker-Hamilton "Iraq Study Group" 
and the 2007 Iraq supplemental spending bill, which, at the time was portrayed 
as the Democrats' withdrawal plan. Both envisioned a sustained presence of US 
forces for an undefined period following a "withdrawal."

In supporting the 2007 supplemental, Obama said it would put the US "one 
signature away from ending the Iraq War." The bill would have redeployed US 
forces from Iraq within 180 days. But that legislation, vetoed by President 
Bush, would also have provided for 20,000 to 60,000 troops to remain in Iraq as 
"trainers," "counter-terrorist forces," or for "protection for 
embassy/diplomats," according to an analysis by the Institute for Policy 
Studies. The bill contained no language about how many "private contractors" 
could remain in Iraq. This helped shed light on what Obama actually meant by 
"ending the Iraq War."

Other glaring clues to the actual nature of Obama's Iraq plan to anyone paying 
attention could be found in the public comments of his advisors, particularly on 
the size of the force Obama may leave in Iraq after his withdrawal is complete. 
Obama has refused to talk numbers, saying in October, "I have tried not to put a 
number on it." That has been the position of many of his loyal aides. "We have 
not put a number on that. It depends on the circumstances on the ground," said 
Susan Rice, Obama's nominee for UN ambassador, during the campaign. "It would be 
worse than folly, it would be dangerous, to put a hard number on the residual 
forces."

But, Richard Danzig, President Clinton's former Navy Secretary who may soon 
follow Robert Gates as Obama's Defense Secretary, said during the campaign that 
the "residual force" could number as many as 55,000 troops. That doesn't include 
Blackwater and other mercenaries and private forces, which the Obama camp has 
declared the president-elect "can't rule out [and] won't rule out" using. At 
present there are more "contractors" in Iraq than soldiers, which is all the 
more ominous when considering Obama's Iraq plan.

In April, it was revealed that the coordinator of Obama's Iraq working group, 
Colin Kahl, had authored a paper, titled "Stay on Success: A Policy of 
Conditional Engagement," which recommended, "the US should aim to transition to 
a sustainable over-watch posture (of perhaps 60,000-80,000 forces) by the end of 
2010 (although the specific timelines should be the byproduct of negotiations 
and conditions on the ground)." Kahl tried to distance the views expressed in 
the paper from Obama's official campaign position, but they were and are consistent.

In March, Obama advisor Samantha Power let the cat out of the bag for some 
people when she described her candidate's 16-month timetable for withdrawing US 
"combat" forces as a "best case scenario." Power said, "He will, of course, not 
rely on some plan that he's crafted as a presidential candidate or a US 
Senator." (After that remark and referring to Sen. Hillary Clinton as a 
"monster," Power resigned from the campaign. Now that Obama is president-elect, 
Power's name has once again resurfaced as a member of his transitional team.)

The New York Times also raised the prospect that Obama could play semantics when 
defining his 16-month withdrawal plan, observing, "Pentagon planners say that it 
is possible that Mr. Obama's goal could be accomplished at least in part by 
relabeling some units, so that those currently counted as combat troops could be 
're-missioned,' their efforts redefined as training and support for the Iraqis."

Compare all of the above with a statement Obama made in July: "I intend to end 
this war. My first day in office I will bring the Joint Chiefs of Staff in, and 
I will give them a new mission, and that is to end this war – responsibly, 
deliberately, but decisively."

Some may now accuse Obama of flip-flopping. The reality is that we need to 
understand what the words "end" "war" "residual" and "decisively" mean when we 
hear Obama say them.

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