[O29] Fwd: Former NSA chief argues for immediate withdrawal

[Eve Lyman]

What's wrong with cutting and running?
 *ASK THIS* | August 03, 2005

Everything that opponents of a pullout say would happen if the U.S. left
Iraq is happening already, says retired Gen. William E. Odom, the head of
the National Security Agency during the Reagan administration. So why stay?

http://www.niemanwatchdog.org/index.cfm?fuseaction=ask_this.view&askthisid=00129


Lieutenant General William E. Odom, U.S. Army (Ret.), is a Senior Fellow
with Hudson Institute <http://www.hudson.org/> and a professor at Yale
University. As Director of the National Security Agency from 1985 to 1988,
he was responsible for the nation's signals intelligence and communications
security.

*By William E. Odom*

 If I were a journalist, I would list all the arguments that you hear
against pulling U.S. troops out of Iraq, the horrible things that people say
would happen, and then ask: Aren't they happening already? Would a pullout
really make things worse? Maybe it would make things better.

 Here are some of the arguments against pulling out:

 * *

*1) We would leave behind a civil war. *

*2) We would lose credibility on the world stage. *

*3) It would embolden the insurgency and cripple the move toward democracy.*

*4) Iraq would become a haven for terrorists.*

*5) Iranian influence in Iraq would increase.*

*6) Unrest might spread in the region and/or draw in Iraq's neighbors. *

*7) Shiite-Sunni clashes would worsen.*

*8) We haven't fully trained the Iraqi military and police forces yet.*

*9) Talk of deadlines would undercut the morale of our troops.*

* *

But consider this:

**

*1) On civil war.* Iraqis are already fighting Iraqis. Insurgents have
killed far more Iraqis than Americans. That's civil war. We created the
civil war when we invaded; we can't prevent a civil war by staying.

 For those who really worry about destabilizing the region, the sensible
policy is not to stay the course in Iraq. It is rapid withdrawal,
re-establishing strong relations with our allies in Europe, showing
confidence in the UN Security Council, and trying to knit together a large
coalition including the major states of Europe, Japan, South Korea, China,
and India to back a strategy for stabilizing the area from the eastern
Mediterranean to Afghanistan and Pakistan. Until the United States withdraws
from Iraq and admits itsstrategic error, no such coalition can be formed.

 Thus those who fear leaving a mess are actually helping make things worse
while preventing a new strategic approach with some promise of success.

 *2) On credibility. *If we were Russia or some other insecure nation, we
might have to worry about credibility. A hyperpower need not worry about
credibility. That's one of the great advantages of being a hyperpower: When
we have made a big strategic mistake, we can reverse it. And it may even
enhance our credibility. Staying there damages our credibility more than
leaving.

 Ask the president if he really worries about US credibility. Or, what will
happen to our credibility if the course he is pursuing proves to be a major
strategic disaster? Would it not be better for our long-term credibility to
withdraw earlier than later in this event?

 *3) On the insurgency and democracy.* There is no question the insurgents
and other anti-American parties will take over the government once we leave.
But that will happen no matter how long we stay. Any government capable of
holding power in Iraq will be anti-American, because the Iraqi people are
increasingly becoming anti-American.

 Also, the U.S. will not leave behind a liberal, constitutional democracy in
Iraq no matter how long it stays. Holding elections is easy. It is
impossible to make it a constitutional democracy in a hurry.

 President Bush's statements about progress in Iraq are increasingly
resembling LBJ's statements during the Vietnam War. For instance, Johnson's
comments about the 1968 election are very similar to what Bush said in
February 2005 after the election of a provisional parliament.

 Ask the president: Why should we expect a different outcome in Iraq than in
Vietnam?

 Ask the president if he intends to leave a pro-American liberal regime in
place. Because that's just impossible. Postwar Germany and Japan are
*not*models for Iraq. Each had mature (at least a full generation old)
constitutional orders by the end of the 19th century. They both endured as
constitutional orders until the 1930s. Thus General Clay and General
MacArthur were merely reversing a decade and a half totalitarianism --
returning to nearly a century of liberal political change in Japan and a
much longer period in Germany.

 Imposing a liberal constitutional order in Iraq would be to accomplish
something that has never been done before. Of all the world's political
cultures, an Arab-Muslim one may be the most resistant to such a change of
any in the world. Even the Muslim society in Turkey (an anti-Arab society)
stands out for being the only example of a constitutional order in an
Islamic society, and even it backslides occasionally.

 *4) On terrorists.* Iraq is already a training ground for terrorists. In
fact, the CIA has pointed out to the administration and congress that Iraq
is spawning so many terrorists that they are returning home to many other
countries to further practice their skills there. The quicker a new dictator
wins the political power in Iraq and imposes order, the sooner the country
will stop producing well-experienced terrorists.

 Why not ask: "Mr. President, since you and the vice president insisted that
Saddam's Iraq supported al Qaeda -- which we now know it did not -- isn't
your policy in Iraq today strengthening al Qaeda's position in that
country?"

 *5) On Iranian influence. *Iranian leaders see US policy in Iraq as being
so much in Teheran's interests that they have been advising Iraqi Shiite
leaders to do exactly what the Americans ask them to do. Elections will
allow the Shiites to take power legally. Once in charge, they can settle
scores with the Baathists and Sunnis. If US policy in Iraq begins to
undercut Iran's interests, then Teheran can use its growing influence among
Iraqi Shiites to stir up trouble, possibly committing Shiite militias to an
insurgency against US forces there. The US invasion has vastly increased
Iran's influence in Iraq, not sealed it out.

 Questions for the administration: "Why do the Iranians support our presence
in Iraq today? Why do they tell the Shiite leaders to avoid a sectarian
clash between Sunnis and Shiites? Given all the money and weapons they
provide Shiite groups, why are they not stirring up more trouble for the US?
Will Iranian policy change once a Shiite majority has the reins of
government? Would it not be better to pull out now rather than to continue
our present course of weakening the Sunnis and Baathists, opening the way
for a Shiite dictatorship?"

 *6) On Iraq's neighbors.* The civil war we leave behind may well draw in
Syria, Turkey and Iran. But already today each of those states is deeply
involved in support for or opposition to factions in the ongoing Iraqi civil
war. The very act of invading Iraq almost insured that violence would
involve the larger region. And so it has and will continue, with, or
without, US forces in Iraq.

 *7) On Shiite-Sunni conflict.* The US presence is not preventing
Shiite-Sunni conflict; it merely delays it. Iran is preventing it today, and
it will probably encourage it once the Shiites dominate the new government,
an outcome US policy virtually ensures.

 *8) On training the Iraq military and police.* The insurgents are fighting
very effectively without US or European military advisors to train them. Why
don't the soldiers and police in the present Iraqi regime's service do their
duty as well? Because they are uncertain about committing their lives to
this regime. They are being asked to take a political stand, just as the
insurgents are. Political consolidation, not military-technical
consolidation, is the issue.

 The issue is *not* military training; it is institutional loyalty. We
trained the Vietnamese military effectively. Its generals took power and
proved to be lousy politicians and poor fighters in the final showdown. In
many battles over a decade or more, South Vietnamese military units fought
very well, defeating VC and NVA units. But South Vietnam's political leaders
lost the war.

 Even if we were able to successfully train an Iraqi military and police
force, the likely result, after all that, would be another military
dictatorship. Experience around the world teaches us that military
dictatorships arise when the military's institutional modernization gets
ahead of political consolidation.

 *9) On not supporting our troops by debating an early pullout. *Many US
officers in Iraq, especially at company and field grade levels, know that
while they are winning every tactical battle, they are losing strategically.
And according to the New York Times
<http://www.nytimes.com/2005/07/24/politics/24troops.html?ei=5090&en=aa94b10da860c8ad&ex=1279857600&partner=rssuserland&emc=rss&pagewanted=all>last
week, they are beginning to voice complaints about Americans at home
bearing none of the pains of the war. One can only guess about the enlisted
ranks, but those or a second tour ¨C probably the majority today ¨C are
probably anxious for an early pullout. It is also noteworthy that US
generals in Iraq are not bubbling over with optimistic reports they way they
were during the first few years of the war in Vietnam. Their careful
statements and caution probably reflect serious doubts that they do not, and
should not, express publicly. The more important question is whether or not
the repressive and vindictive behavior by the secretary of defense and his
deputy against the senior military -- especially the Army leadership, which
is the critical component in the war -- has made it impossible for field
commanders to make the political leaders see the facts.

 Most surprising to me is that no American political leader today has tried
to unmask the absurdity of the administration's case that to question the
strategic wisdom of the war is unpatriotic and a failure to support our
troops. Most officers and probably most troops don't see it that way. They
are angry at the deficiencies in materiel support they get from the
Department of Defense, and especially about the irresponsibly long
deployments they must now endure because Mr. Rumsfeld and his staff have
refused to enlarge the ground forces to provide shorter tours. In the
meantime, they know that the defense budget shovels money out the door to
maritime forces, SDI, etc., while refusing to increase dramatically the size
of the Army.

 As I wrote several years ago, "the Pentagon's post-Cold War force structure
is so maritime heavy and land force weak that it is firmly in charge of the
porpoises and whales while leaving the land to tyrants." The Army, some of
the Air Force, the National Guard, and the reserves are now the victims of
this gross mismatch between military missions and force structure. Neither
the Bush nor the Clinton administration has properly "supported the troops."
The media could ask the president why he fails to support our troops by not
firing his secretary of defense.

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So why is almost nobody advocating a pullout? I can only speculate. We face
a strange situation today where few if any voices among Democrats in
Congress will mention early withdrawal from Iraq, and even the one or two
who do will not make a comprehensive case for withdrawal now.Why are the
Democrats failing the public on this issue today? The biggest reason is
because they weren't willing to raise that issue during the campaign. Howard
Dean alone took a clear and consistent stand on Iraq, and the rest of the
Democratic party trashed him for it. Most of those in Congress voted for the
war and let that vote shackle them later on. Now they are scared to death
that the White House will smear them with lack of patriotism if they suggest
pulling out.

Journalists can ask all the questions they like but none will prompt a more
serious debate as long as no political leaders create the context and force
the issues into the open.

 I don't believe anyone will be able to sustain a strong case in the short
run without going back to the fundamental misjudgment of invading Iraq in
the first place. Once the enormity of that error is grasped, the case for
pulling out becomes easy to see.

 Look at John Kerry's utterly absurd position during the presidential
campaign. He said "It's the wrong war, in the wrong place, at the wrong
time," but then went on to explain how he expected to win it anyway. Even
the voter with no interest in foreign affairs was able to recognize it as an
absurdity. If it was the wrong war at the wrong place and time, then it was
never in our interest to fight. If that is true, what has changed to make it
in our interest? Nothing, absolutely nothing.

 The US invasion of Iraq only serves the interest of:

 *1) Osama bin Laden* (it made Iraq safe for al Qaeda, positioned US
military personnel in places where al Qaeda operatives can kill them
occasionally, helps radicalize youth throughout the Arab and Muslim world,
alienates America's most important and strongest allies ¨C the Europeans ¨C
and squanders US military resources that otherwise might be finishing off al
Qaeda in Pakistan.);

 *2) The Iranians *(who were invaded by Saddam and who suffered massive
casualties in an eight year war with Iraq.);

 * 3) And the extremists in both Palestinian and Israeli political
circles*(who don't really want a peace settlement without the utter
destruction of
the other side, and probably believe that bogging the United States down in
a war in Iraq that will surely become a war between the United States and
most of the rest of Arab world gives them the time and cover to wipe out the
other side.)

 The wisest course for journalists might be to begin sustained
investigations of why leading Democrats have failed so miserably to
challenge the US occupation of Iraq. The first step, of course, is to
establish as conventional wisdom the fact that the war was never in the US
interest and has not become so. It is such an obvious case to make that I
find it difficult to believe many pundits and political leaders have not
already made it repeatedly.

--
We Are One World
Eve Lyman
Director
Boston Mobilization
30 Bow Street
Cambridge, MA, 02138
617.492.8899
www.bostonmobilization.org <http://www.bostonmobilization.org>

PLEASE SIGN ONLINE PETITION ON BIOLABS
http://www.thepetitionsite.com/takeaction/637198817

"Our lives begin to end the day we become silent about things that matter."
-- The Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr.


--
We Are One World
Eve Lyman
Director
Boston Mobilization
30 Bow Street
Cambridge, MA, 02138
617.492.8899
www.bostonmobilization.org <http://www.bostonmobilization.org>

PLEASE SIGN ONLINE PETITION ON BIOLABS
http://www.thepetitionsite.com/takeaction/637198817

"Our lives begin to end the day we become silent about things that matter."
-- The Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr.
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