Thinking About How To Get Out Of Dodge
Can the U.S. start cutting its forces in Iraq in '06?
Lt. Gen. John Sattler is preparing his marines to return to Iraq next year. But that's a job made more complicated by the uncertainty about how many troops will be needed, under what conditions, for what type of mission. Sattler and the 1st Marine Expeditionary Force led the fight against insurgents in Fallujah last fall, before returning home in February to refit and retrain. For now, Sattler is preparing to bring to Iraq the same number of troops--roughly 35,000. But he will be ready to re-evaluate, since bringing more infantry than necessary, he says, would be counterproductive. " They just become targets," Sattler said last week. "If we are not needed, we will off ramp."
How many American troops will be in Iraq next year? Last week, key American and Iraqi leaders made it sound as if the current U.S. force level of 139,000 could be significantly reduced. In a news conference with Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, Iraqi Prime Minister Ibrahim Jafari said he wants the Americans to take steps--speedy steps--to draw down. Gen. George Casey, the top American military leader in Iraq, said the United States will make "some fairly substantial reductions" come next spring. But the statement came with some pretty big ifs. In order to make good on that goal, Casey said, the insurgency must be quieted, and the Iraqi security forces must continue to improve.
Unknowns. Privately, American officials say Casey's comments reflect optimism that the growth of Iraqi forces will allow a major pullout. "It's not unrealistic at all," says a senior defense official. Nevertheless, other military officials acknowledge that conditions are changing and that many questions persist, such as, will a full-blown civil war break out? As Rumsfeld might say, there are many known unknowns and many unknown unknowns.
In fact, before the Pentagon pulls any more troops back, the American force will probably surge higher during the voting scheduled for October and December, thanks in part to carefully timed overlapping unit rotations. Nevertheless, the increase will last only long enough to protect candidates and polling sites.
There are a number of military reasons that the United States might want to make real efforts to shrink the size of its forces in Iraq, since some experts think fewer American soldiers might actually help the cause of stability. "My attitude is if someone isn't writing a plan to reduce the force, they should be," says retired Maj. Gen. William Nash, a senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations. "I believe a reduced profile will improve our chance of success over there."
There are at least two arguments about why less is more. The first is that a large American force gives insurgents a focus. The second argument is that Iraqi security forces will have a hard time stepping up to their jobs as long as they are overshadowed by more-skilled and better-equipped U.S. forces. A number of the American advisers who work most closely with Iraqi soldiers believe America must push up the timetable for handing responsibility to Iraqi units. The only way the Iraqis can really learn how to fight the insurgency and bring security to the country, the argument goes, is if the Americans give them the responsibility for doing it, rather than merely allowing the Iraqis to follow behind U.S. troops as they go on operations.
Quartermasters. One problem with pushing forward the Iraqi Army is that the transitional government has little ability to support its soldiers. The Iraqis have uniforms, boots, flak vests, helmets, and rifles, but only because the Americans supplied them. The Iraqis depend on Americans for food and complain that they lack many of the basics--like tape, batteries, or chalkboards--that are necessary for such an organization to operate.
Americans insist that the right way to handle this is to help the Iraqis develop their own logistics capabilities. The Australians have opened a logistics-training center to help the Iraqis build up a quartermaster corps. "A big focus of the coming year is to help deliver their ability to transport themselves, maintain their equipment, provide first level . . . medical care and basic supply tasks," says U.S. Lt. Gen. David Petraeus, who leads the overall training effort. But this will be a long-term project. And the reality is that if the Americans want the Iraqi Army to take responsibility for a large swath of country next year, the United States will have to provide the supplies, the transportation, and the logistics know-how.
General Sattler says that when his force returns to Iraq, its priorities will be different from what they were before. Rather than fighting insurgents, his marines' top priorities will be training the Iraqis and providing them logistics support. That, Sattler says, could mean that his marines bring fewer riflemen and more logisticians and other "combat enablers." Says Sattler: "As Iraqis come on line, our commitment should come down. We may have to increase these enablers at the same time we decrease some of the infantry."
Given that even the best military minds don't know what the state of the insurgency will be next spring, predicting the level of troops needed is still largely a guessing game. But Iraqi leaders made clear last week that securing a troop reduction is a political imperative for them. It probably won't be bad politics in America, either.
U.S. TROOP LEVELS
Since President Bush declared the "end of major combat operations" in May 2003, troop levels hit a low in 2004 and a high a year later.
DATE TROOP LEVEL
May 2003 150,000
Feb. 2004 115,000
Feb. 2005 155,000
July 2005 139,000
Sources: Defense Dept., Brookings Institution
This story appears in the August 8, 2005 print edition of U.S. News & World Report.