Washington ‘Protecting’ Iraq From…Washington

(10 am. – promoted by ek hornbeck)

In a perhaps unintentional and obtuse twist of sardonic wit and possibly complete unawareness of the irony of his own words, Commander of United States Forces – Iraq (USF-I) General Ray Odierno said on Sunday in an interview with ABC’s Christiane Amanpour that the 50,000 US troops that will remain in Iraq along with “a significant civilian presence” after the US ‘withdraws’, will help Iraq thwart “interference from outside countries”.

Really. You can’t make this stuff up. If fiction it wouldn’t qualify as humor.

United States forces under President George W. Bush invaded Iraq in an unprovoked attack in 2003 and have occupied the country since. By some counts more than a million Iraqis have died as a direct result of the US invasion and occupation.

Odierno was former primary military advisor to Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice from November 2004 to May 2006, and has long argued against withdrawal of all US forces from Iraq. He assumed command of USF-I’s predecessor, Multi-National Force – Iraq on September 16, 2008 and took the reins as Commander of U.S. Forces Iraq on January 1, 2010, under President Barack Obama.

Odierno’s ironic comments in the interview followed only a few days after President Obama publicly backtracked on his 2009 pledge to withdraw all US combat troops from Iraq by September 1, 2010:

Obama’s jettisoning of one of his key campaign promises and of a high-profile pledge early in his administration without explicit acknowledgment highlights the way in which language on national security policy can be manipulated for political benefit with the acquiescence of the news media.

Obama’s apparent pledge of withdrawal of combat troops by the Sept. 1 deadline in his Feb. 27, 2009, speech generated headlines across the commercial news media. That allowed the administration to satisfy its antiwar Democratic Party base on a pivotal national security policy issue.

At the same time, however, it allowed Obama to back away from his campaign promise on Iraq withdrawal, and to signal to those political and bureaucratic forces backing a long-term military presence in Iraq that he had no intention of pulling out all combat troops at least until the end of 2011.

He could do so because the news media were inclined to let the apparent Obama withdrawal pledge stand as the dominant narrative line, even though the evidence indicated it was a falsehood.

Only a few days after the Obama speech, Secretary of Defense Robert Gates was more forthright about the policy. In an appearance on Meet the Press March 1, 2009, Gates said the “transition force” remaining after Aug. 31, 2010, would have “a very different kind of mission,” and that the units remaining in Iraq “will be characterized differently.”

“They will be called advisory and assistance brigades,” said Gates. “They won’t be called combat brigades.”

But “advisory and assistance brigades” were configured with the same combat capabilities as the “combat brigade teams,” which had been the basic U.S. military unit of combat organization for six years, as IPS reported in March 20009.

Gates was thus signaling that the military solution to the problem of Obama’s combat troop withdrawal pledge had been accepted by the White House.

That plan had been developed in late 2008 by Gen. David Petraeus, the CENTCOM chief, and Gen. Ray Odierno, the top commander in Iraq, who were determined to get Obama to abandon his pledge to withdraw all U.S. combat brigades from Iraq within 16 months of taking office.

“A strong Iraq will defend itself against interference from outside countries, and I think as we build a strong Iraq and as we continue to build a strong security mechanism and as we continue to help them economically and diplomatically, that will make it less likely of others from the outside being able to interfere,” Odierno told Christiane Amanpour on ABC’s “This Week“, Sunday August 8, 2010.

“What are you noticing in terms of interference potentially from other funded groups from the neighbors?” Amanpour asked Odierno. “Do you notice or are you alarmed that there may be any kind of other countries trying to take advantage of what is a bit of a political vacuum right now?”

Odierno replied,

Well, Iraq, as you well know, Christiane, Iraq is a strategically important place in the Middle East, just by its geographic location, by its population, by the influence it’s had in the Middle East for a long time. So neighboring countries from around the Middle East have an interest inside of Iraq.

But I will tell you that I think Iraqis themselves are nationalistic in nature, and that’s why it’s important. A strong Iraq will defend itself against interference from outside countries, and I think as we build a strong Iraq and as we continue to build a strong security mechanism and as we continue to help them economically and diplomatically, that will make it less likely of others from the outside being able to interfere.

Now, for the vacuum as we see today, again, I remind everyone is that we still have a significant presence here, and we are not going to — we will not allow undue maligned influence on the Iraqi government as they attempt to form their government. What we’re trying to do is provide them the space and time for them to do that, and we will continue to do that post 1 September. We’ll still have a significant civilian presence, and again, we’ll still have 50,000 troops on the ground here to ensure that this government can be formed by the Iraqis. And that all the other nations respect their sovereignty as they go about forming their government.