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George Bush's most steadfast backer
in the March 2003 preventive war invasion and occupation of Iraq
has been British Prime Minister Tony Blair. The Bush-Blair "dynamic
duo" act is, however, about to end. Blair is soon to resign
his post in favor of the Chancellor of the Exchequer Gordon Brown.
Like the date on which British,
U.S., and all other foreign occupation troops will leave Iraq,
the exact month and day of the hand-over of #10 Downing Street
remains undeclared. But pressure is sure to mount for some declaration
on both points because of remarks by top British military official
General Sir Richard Dannatt.
Sir Richard, who became the
UK Chief of the General Staff (CGS) only last August, said in
an October 12 interview with London's Daily Mail that
UK forces should leave Iraq "soon" because the very
presence of foreign troops "exacerbates the security problems."
Sir Richard also drew attention to the swift change in the level
of tolerance of the Iraqi public toward the foreign occupation.
"The military campaign we fought in 2003 effectively kicked
the door in. Whatever tolerance we may have had in the first
place has largely turned to intolerance" after 42 months.
Dannatt also opined that planning for the occupation phase was
"poor, probably based more on optimism than sound planning."
Within 24 hours, Sir Richard
was again speaking to the British press, "clarifying"
what he meant by "soon" and refuting the media's contention
that his original interview represented a break with the government's
position. He did not call for a timetable for withdrawing all
troops, yet he expressed concern that morale in and recruiting
for the ground forces have been damaged by the war and the loss
(to date) of 119 UK personnel. The demands of occupying Iraq
have caused "a fair pressure on ourselves," Dannatt
said. "We don't want to be there two, three, four, five
years. We've got to think about this in terms of a reasonable
length of time."
Pentagon
Response
Set against the most recent
comments by the Pentagon hierarchy, Dannatt's "revisions"
strike a distinctly discordant note. On October 11, the U.S.
Army Chief of Staff General Peter Schoomaker told reporters that
the Army had contingency plans for staying in Iraq through 2010
with the same number of deployed combat troops as now. In an
October 12 Pentagon press conference, General George Casey, the
senior U.S. commander in Iraq, revealed that he had been prepared
this past summer to recommend that some of the then-130,000 U.S.
troops could be withdrawn. But the increased sectarian violence
over the past four months, particularly in Baghdad, actually
has required extending tours for some units and repositioning
others-and this even before the usually bloody month of Ramadan
started.
At the same press conference,
Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld reminded the press that
General Schoomaker is not in the command chain that sets the
troop levels for Iraq (and for Afghanistan). The chain in Iraq
runs from the ground commanders to General Casey to U.S. Central
Command commander, General John Abizaid. From there it goes directly
to Rumsfeld and Bush. And only last month General Abizaid stated
that no reduction of troops in Iraq would take place before next
spring-at the earliest.
Dannatt professed to be "puzzled"
by the stir following publication of the original interview,
contending that other, well-known UK officers had earlier made
the same or even harsher criticism. Indeed, in early January
2006, retired General Sir Michael Rose, who commanded all UN
forces in Bosnia in 1994, called for impeaching Tony Blair. And
General Sir Michael Jackson, Dannatt's predecessor as CGS and
deputy NATO commander in the late 1990s under U.S. General Wesley
Clarke, had earlier called for withdrawing UK troops from Iraq.
Dannatt, however, is to date
the only active duty senior officer in either the UK or the United
States to have come close to an explicit call for removing foreign
troops. After Sir Richard's original remarks became public, retired
Major General Patrick Cordingly, who commanded the UK's "Desert
Rats" in the first Gulf War in 1991, commended Dannatt for
speaking out.
Neither Downing Street nor
the Ministry of Defence (MOD) publicly challenged, let alone
attacked, Sir Richard. Blair's office said foreign troops were
in Iraq "at the express wish" of the Iraqi government
and under a UN mandate, while a MOD spokesperson said the military
"had a clear strategy." This moderate response contrasts
sharply with how, just before the U.S.-led invasion took place,
Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz rebuked then-U.S.
Army Chief of Staff Eric Shinseki for telling Congress that "several
hundred thousand" troops would be needed to occupy Iraq.
Transatlantic
Future
Blair may force Dannatt to
leave or the CGS may "resign" on principle. One long-serving
MOD civilian, in a private communication, observed that Sir Richard's
stand caused "a bit of a stir" and that "most
opinion is with him although there may not be many that speak
out." UK public opinion, the source continued, is increasingly
supporting the proposition that "now that the Iraqis have
their own democratically elected government, it's time to let
them use it and take responsibility for their own country."
Alternatively, the Ministry
of Defence could declare substantial progress and withdraw some
troops. Two of the four Iraqi provinces once controlled by the
UK contingent have been "handed back" and are being
run by Iraqis. Blair will want to leave on a high note, and he's
not got much to crow about other than these two returned provinces.
One thing seems certain. Even
though the signature B-B relationship will survive the coming
"regime change" in the UK when Brown replaces Blair,
the intensity of UK enthusiasm for staying on in Iraq will diminish.
With casualties mounting, with the generals beginning at last
to criticize the war and the effects of combat, Brown will find
himself under enormous pressure to set a timetable, declare an
exit strategy, and bring the UK troops home.
And should the Republicans
lose control of the House or Senate in next month's election,
George Bush may have to declare "victory" and follow
the lead of the British: out the door that was kicked in on March
19, 2003.
Col. Dan Smith is a military affairs analyst for
Foreign Policy In Focus ,
a retired U.S. Army colonel, and a senior fellow on military
affairs at the Friends Committee on National Legislation. Email
at dan@fcnl.org.
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