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‘We Needed Timelines’

Those who view the U.S. military command in Iraq as being an outpost of opposition to President Obama’s withdrawal plans would have an interesting time with

Jul 31, 20201.7K Shares289.6K Views
Those who view the U.S. military command in Iraq as being an outpost of opposition to President Obama’s withdrawal planswould have an interesting time with Maj. Gen. David Perkins, who’s the director of strategic effects for Multinational Forces-Iraq. With regard to both the improving security picture — there are days with just 10 insurgent attacks now — andthe announced timelines for withdrawal, “the changes are for the better,” Perkins said during a conference call with bloggers. In accordance with the Status of Forces Agreement with the Iraqi government, Obama has given the command a series of timelines to meet to end the combat mission and then the U.S. presence, and “that’s exactly what we needed,” Perkins said. “We needed timelines, guidance as to the size of the force. Now we’re going through the mission analysis.”
It was conspicuous how rarely Perkins added caveats to his assessments. Only when he was invited to give closing remarks did he mention that there were still challenges ahead — but the first one he mentioned was the drop in oil prices that will impact the Iraqi government’s budget. Residual elements of al-Qaeda and the Shiite “Special Group criminals” now find it “very hard to get the passive support that’s so neccessary” for an insurgency to continue. Several times he repeated that with the end of the surge, troop levels have come down 20 percent as attacks have come down 90 percent, an implicit challenge to the notion that U.S. forces are the only thing between stability and chaos in Iraq. With a dual focus on U.S. troop withdrawals and improving Iraqi security-force capacity, the U.S. military command seems to have found a formula that “we think works well,” Perkins said.
Perkins repeatedly talked about what goals Gen. Ray Odierno’s command sought to meet by the deadlines of “31 August 2010,” when the combat mission ends, and “31 December 2011,” when the U.S. force presence ends. In other words, Perkins, like Defense Secretary Bob Gates, gave no indication that the United States plans to be in Iraq beyond 2011.
So what *will *the U.S. mission in Iraq look like between now and 2011, in Perkins’ estimation? I’ll summarize that in my next post.
Hajra Shannon

Hajra Shannon

Reviewer
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