Is There A Timetable for Iraq?
Of course there is a timetable for Iraq. And it's not a secret. Maj. Gen. James Thurman, the commander of the 4th Infantry Division in Baghdad, laid it out in a telephone press conference with members of the Texas press corps (that's where the 4th I.D. is based). "Key provinces are starting to transfer to Iraqi government control, including Najaf and Karbala by November-December. Babil will come under their control sometime after the first of the year." And you can be sure there's a target date for every other province as well. But what does that mean? It does not mean that U.S. troops in those provinces are free to come home. They will either be sent somewhere else in the country where they are needed or they'll remain where they are as a backup to the Iraqi forces. And what happens if the target date comes and goes, but the Iraqis aren't ready to take over? Not much. As Joint Chiefs Chairman Gen. Pete Pace explained, there won't be any penalties for failing to meet the target dates because, after all, the Iraqis are our friends.
Still, if U.S. commanders can set target dates for Iraqis to take over, why can't they set target dates for American troops to come home? They tried it once with a plan to come down to 100,000 by the end of this year. That's not going to happen, even though by the end of the year the the U.S. expects to have met its goal of training and equiping 325,000 Iraqi soldiers and police. Which raises the obvious question: why isn't the number of American troops going down as the number of Iraqi troops goes up? Maj. Gen. Thurman provided part of the answer in that press conference. When he realized he needed more troops in Baghdad he asked the Iraqis to send in six battalions -- roughly 3600 troops. "So far, I've received two out of six of those battalions and am waiting on the other four. The Ministry of Defense is working the issue." The issue, simply put, is that Iraqi battalions in other parts of the country said "hell no we won't go" to Baghdad. Another problem with the Iraqi army is that at any given time one quarter of a unit is on leave. That's because there's no system for a soldier's pay check to be delivered to his family. So when he gets paid, he has to take the money home.
Is the United States on the brink of failure in Iraq? There are people whose opinion I respect who think we are. There are also people whose opinion I respect who think we are headed in the right direction. Nobody knows how this will come out. But it is safe to say we are not on the brink of success.
