The Washington Independent » odierno

More on the Obama-Military Relationship

Spencer Ackerman — Mon, 01 Dec 2008 11:00:48 +0000

I suppose it’s not really surprising that the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff — technically a two-year appointment, though frequently re-upp’d — would say nice things on the record about his incoming commander-in-chief, but Karen DeYoung’s Washington Post piece displays a noteworthy calm among the brass about Obama. (I wrote about the difficulties and opportunities in the Obama-military relationship here. Obama’s instincts to confront disagreements directly figured heavily in both her piece and mine.) Two points of hers stand out as issues to watch. First:

While some Pentagon officials believe an Iraq withdrawal order could become Obama’s equivalent of the Clinton controversy over gays, several senior Defense Department sources said that Gates, Mullen and Gen. David H. Petraeus, head of the military’s Central Command, are untroubled by the 16-month plan and feel it can be accomplished with a month or two of wiggle room.

That sound you hear is a chainsaw, cutting the legs out from under the rapid right-wingers that want to call Obama a traitor for withdrawing along that timetable. Still, here’s the second point:

These sources noted that Obama himself has said he would not be “careless” about withdrawal and would retain a “residual” force of unspecified size to fight terrorists and protect U.S. diplomats and civilians. The officer most concerned about untimely withdrawal, sources said, is the Iraq commander, Gen. Ray Odierno.

Here’s where the rubber hits the road. The Status of Forces Agreement just approved by the Iraqi Parliament calls for all U.S. troops to leave Iraq by December 2011. (It’s possible they may even have to leave by May 2010.) Not combat troops, all troops — no residual force. Obama hasn’t said exactly what he makes of the deal, but since it does nothing but take a massive controversy off his plate, it’s difficult to see why he’d oppose it.

But what does Odierno think of his new constraints? Does he think the U.S. and the Iraqis just amicably reached consensus on the reasonable limits of the U.S. commitment? Or does he feel betrayed, placed under politically-arrived-upon restrictions that undermine his operational flexibility? One would think that a counterinsurgent would understand that it’s folly to “want” the mission more than the host nation does. But it’s the natural impulse of a commander, for understandable reasons, to want maximum autonomy — especially since his predecessors (especially his immediate predecessor) pretty much enjoyed that. And if Obama makes his embrace of the SOFA clear, what will that mean for the Obama-Odierno relationship?

Odierno Threatens to Take Toys, Go Home if Iraqis Don’t Sign Base Deal

Spencer Ackerman — Tue, 28 Oct 2008 20:38:05 +0000

So it’s come to this.

McClatchy’s Leila Fadel reports that Gen. Ray Odierno, commander of U.S. troops in Iraq, is telling the obstinate Maliki government that unless it signs a Status of Forces Agreement with the U.S. before the end of the year, the U.S. is going to leave Iraq with no money, no security and probably no Halloween candy.

Army Gen. Ray Odierno, the top U.S. military commander in Iraq, informed Iraqi officials last week that if their country doesn’t agree to a new agreement governing American forces in Iraq, it would lose $6.3 billion in aid for construction, security forces and economic activity and another $10 billion a year in foreign military sales.

The warning was spelled out in a three-page list that was shown to McClatchy on Monday. Iraqi officials consider the threat serious and worry that the impasse over the so-called status of forces agreement could lead to a crisis in Iraq. Without a new agreement or a renewed United Nations mandate, the U.S. military presence would become an illegal occupation under international law.

The agreement, as I reported, bends over backward to accomodate the Iraqis — and they still don’t want it. Why not just go back to the U.N. for another mandate? The Iraqis told Fadel’s colleague Roy Gutman that they’ll probably just have to do that anyway. But ask yourself: Is threatening to take your toys and go home the way that superpowers behave?

Please, God, Someone Ask Odierno What His Strategy Will Be

Spencer Ackerman — Mon, 29 Sep 2008 16:25:36 +0000

Lesley Stahl of 60 Minutes landed an interview with Ray Odierno, the new commander of U.S. troops in Iraq. Somehow she managed not to ask him what his strategy for the next year-plus is going to be. The closest she comes is here:

The U.S. is spending $10 billion a month in Iraq. General Odierno will be leaning on the Iraqi government, with its $80 billion surplus, to clean things up, restore electricity and do something about the unemployment rate of upwards of 50 percent, as he becomes the general in charge of nation building.

“You’re almost like a shadow secretary of labor and a minister of public works and talking to them about construction projects and engineering projects and jobs,” Stahl commented.

“Yeah. As we make progress, you know, the problems become actually more complex. And so we have to learn to work with many other agencies in order to do the kind of things we’re talking about,” he replied.

Uhhhhh OK, but what does that mean? How does Odierno tread water with 30,000 fewer troops, an increasingly assertive Iraqi prime minister, a continued sectarian deadlock, and on and on and on and so forth? These are basic questions that remain unanswered.

Stahl’s interview with Odierno follows:

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