[Peace-discuss] Change in Bush/Obama Iraq policy only rhetorical

[C. G. Estabrook]

[1] Iran says US planning 'long-term stay' in Iraq (Feb 28)
    Iran's supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei on Saturday accused Washington 
of planning a "long-term stay" in Iraq after US President Barrack Obama said up 
to 50,000 combat troops will remain until 2011.
    "The occupiers are preparing the ground for their long-term stay in Iraq 
which is a great danger and the Iraqi authorities should be aware of this 
danger," Khamenei told visiting Iraqi President Jalal Talabani, the ISNA news 
agency reported.
    "The occupying troops should exit Iraq as soon as possible, since any day of 
delay is a loss for the Iraqi people," he was quoted as telling the Iraqi 
leader. "The presence of US and British forces and advisers harms Iraq."
    Shiite majority Iran has always been vocal in demanding the withdrawal of 
foreign troops from its neighbour, where Shiites are also the biggest community.
    Obama on Friday ordered an end within 18 months to US military operations in 
Iraq. However he also said up to US 50,000 troops, compared with the current 
142,000-strong force, will remain until the end of 2011, nearly nine years after 
his predecessor George W. Bush ordered an invasion to topple Saddam Hussein. [AFP]


[2] Obama has said his Iraq policy will include leaving a residual U.S. military 
force of unspecified composition and size in Iraq and in the region to conduct 
counter-terrorism missions against al-Qaida in Iraq and to protect American 
diplomatic and civilian personnel. He has said they will not build permanent 
bases in Iraq but will continue training and supporting Iraqi security forces 
"as long as Iraqi leaders move toward political reconciliation and away from 
sectarianism." [AP]


[3] ...Originally, none of those "residuals" were supposed to be combat troops – 
yet now we are told "some would still be serving in combat as they conducted 
counterterrorism missions." You have to go all the way to the very end of this 
New York Times report before you discover that, according to Pentagon press 
secretary Geoff Morrell, "A limited number of those that remain will conduct 
combat operations against terrorists, assisting Iraqi security forces."
In short: we aren't leaving.
	I don't care what the status of forces agreement says: that document has more 
loopholes than the bank bailout bill's provisions for paying back the American 
taxpayers. Those 50,000 "residual" occupiers will simply pull back into their 
permanent bases, which are even now being constructed throughout Iraq, to be 
called on when our sock-puppets find themselves unable to tamp down the growing 
spirit of rebellion.
	What kind of a "withdrawal" is this? It is one so burdened with contingencies, 
conditional footnotes, and amendatory clauses, that it falls beneath its own 
weight and collapses into a fair approximation of the status quo. [Raimondo]

	###