Baghdad's military remains heavily dependent on US logistical support, air power, equipment and expertise, while most Baghdad politicians are anxious to retain American troops as a peacekeeping force in reserve.
"The more pressing requirement is less teaching them how to use weapons and more providing reassurance to threatened internal communities that they won't be exploited by their erstwhile internal rivals," said Stephen Biddle of the Council on Foreign Relations.
Exactly. The defense angle has always been obvious. The political angle is just as important. It is great that the long negotiations over forming a government have not broken down into fighting for power. If our troops weren't there, would all the Iraqi parties have the confidence to remain in the realm of politics? They have corrupt politics, but corruption is the norm in the region. And only our presence can help to minimize it.
So how many troops?
"I think it could get down to even less than 10,000 and still be viable," John Ballard, a professor at National Defense University and a retired army officer, told AFP.
That's ridiculousl low for the next decade. That's basically just ground combat forces, and doesn't count support personnel, special forces, or Air Force. I call it closer to 25,000 to make sure we can carry out all our missions. But we'd still rely on forces outside Iraq to reinforce in an emergency:
Perhaps we can draw down to three [combat] brigades (one near Basra, one near Baghdad, and one near Mosul and Kirkuk), with a total of 10,000. Perhaps we get down to 12,000 support personnel and a few thousand special forces. That would total 25,000. Plus civilian contractors for training, maintenance, and working with the State Department. Perhaps we can count on using air power based in Turkey and Kuwait to miminimze the need to put fighter aircraft and support planes inside Iraq.
And I'd be happy if we had a couple brigade sets of equipment in Iraq so we could rapidly fly in troops to reinforce our troops there in a crisis.
Assuming we could also call on an airborne brigade based in Italy and a Marine Expeditionary Unit afloat within CENTCOM, we could more than double our ground power in a short time.
I think we have a couple more brigade sets for the Army in the region (Kuwait and afloat?), meaning we could get a bit more without even calling on forces in the United States.
I hope our politicians at home don't try to save a small amount of money at the expense of reinforcing the success that the far greater amount of money we've already spent (and our casualties) has achieved.
If we go there will be trouble. And if we stay it will be double.
Yes, staying means we will continue to bear the burden of fighting, but failure to fight will be far worse for us.
