[Peace-discuss] Iraq obamanized

[C. G. Estabrook]

[Gareth Porter was writing last month in LMD that Obama "lost control of Iraq 
policy" but now seems to have changed his mind.  The reality seems to be that 
the White House and the Pentagon agree, over against their lying PR, that they 
will "withdraw" from Iraq only to the extent compatible with effective control. 
Their prevarication keeps the matter unclear.  --CGE]

	US-IRAQ: Generals Seek to Reverse Obama Withdrawal Decision
	By Gareth Porter*

WASHINGTON, Feb 2 (IPS) - CENTCOM commander Gen. David Petraeus, supported by 
Defence Secretary Robert Gates, tried to convince President Barack Obama that he 
had to back down from his campaign pledge to withdraw all U.S. combat troops 
from Iraq within 16 months at an Oval Office meeting Jan. 21.

But Obama informed Gates, Petraeus and Joint Chiefs Chairman Adm. Mike Mullen 
that he wasn't convinced and that he wanted Gates and the military leaders to 
come back quickly with a detailed 16-month plan, according to two sources who 
have talked with participants in the meeting.

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.

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."

Petraeus, Gates and Odierno had hoped to sell Obama on a plan that they 
formulated in the final months of the Bush administration that aimed at getting 
around a key provision of the U.S.-Iraqi withdrawal agreement signed envisioned 
re-categorising large numbers of combat troops as support troops. That 
subterfuge was by the United States last November while ostensibly allowing 
Obama to deliver on his campaign promise.

Gates and Mullen had discussed the relabeling scheme with Obama as part of the 
Petraeus-Odierno plan for withdrawal they had presented to him in mid-December, 
according to a Dec. 18 New York Times story.

Obama decided against making any public reference to his order to the military 
to draft a detailed 16-month combat troop withdrawal policy, apparently so that 
he can announce his decision only after consulting with his field commanders and 
the Pentagon.

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.

Keane, the Army Vice-Chief of Staff from 1999 to 2003, has ties to a network of 
active and retired four-star Army generals, and since Obama's Jan. 21 order on 
the 16-month withdrawal plan, some of the retired four-star generals in that 
network have begun discussing a campaign to blame Obama's troop withdrawal from 
Iraq for the ultimate collapse of the political "stability" that they expect to 
follow U.S. withdrawal, according to a military source familiar with the 
network's plans.

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.

Ever since he began working on the troop surge, Keane has been the central 
figure manipulating policy in order to keep as many U.S. troops in Iraq as 
possible. It was Keane who got Vice President Dick Cheney to push for Petraeus 
as top commander in Iraq in late 2006 when the existing commander, Gen. George 
W. Casey, did not support the troop surge.

It was Keane who protected Petraeus's interests in ensuring the maximum number 
of troops in Iraq against the efforts by other military leaders to accelerate 
troop withdrawal in 2007 and 2008. As Bob Woodward reported in "The War Within", 
Keane persuaded President George W. Bush to override the concerns of the Joint 
Chiefs of Staff about the stress of prolonged U.S. occupation of Iraq on the 
U.S. Army and Marine Corps as well its impact on the worsening situation in 
Afghanistan.

Bush agreed in September 2007 to guarantee that Petraeus would have as many 
troops as he needed for as long as wanted, according to Woodward's account.

Keane had also prevailed on Gates in April 2008 to make Petraeus the new 
commander of CENTCOM. Keane argued that keeping Petraeus in the field was the 
best insurance against a Democratic administration reversing the Bush policy 
toward Iraq.

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."

Obama told Petraeus in Baghdad last July that, if elected, he would regard the 
overall health of the U.S. Army and Marine Corps and the situation in 
Afghanistan as more important than Petraeus's obvious interest in maximising 
U.S. troop strength in Iraq, according to Time magazine's Joe Klein.

But judging from Petraeus's shock at Obama's Jan. 21 decision, he had not taken 
Obama's previous rejection of his arguments seriously. That miscalculation 
suggests that Petraeus had begun to accept Keane's assertion that a 
newly-elected Democratic president would not dare to override his policy 
recommendation on troops in Iraq.

*Gareth Porter is an investigative historian and journalist specialising in U.S. 
national security policy. The paperback edition of his latest book, "Perils of 
Dominance: Imbalance of Power and the Road to War in Vietnam", was published in 
2006.

http://www.ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=45640