Just to Repeat: 50,000 US Troops in Iraq....Indefinitely

Have just read Marc Lynch's excellent reaction at Foreign Policy website: "Such a plan could dangerously muddle what needs to be a clear signal of a commitment to withdrawal and probably not work the way it's been presented."

Risking immodestly, we'd like to re-post what we wrote yesterday:

Here’s the stinger, though: 50,000 US troops will remain in Iraq after the “withdrawal”, classified as “residual” forces for training and support of Iraqi security units, intelligence operations, and even possible airstrikes by unmanned aircraft.

And here's The New York Times today:

Even after August 2010, as many as 50,000 of the 142,000 troops now in Iraq would remain, including some combat units reassigned as “Advisory Training Brigades” or “Advisory Assistance Brigades,” the administration and Pentagon officials said.

And forgive us if we ask if "support" is military-speak for "more things change, more they stay the same":

Officers warned that even as overall troop levels dropped, there would be fresh American units deploying to Iraq, both to replace those whose tours end and to reshape the force into one better suited for training and advising Iraqis. While most of the troops remaining after August 2010 would be in support roles, some would still be serving in combat as they conducted counterterrorism missions.

UPDATED: "Taliban": Well, They All Look the Same....

This week Josh Mull ("UJ"), both in his guest blog and in his comments, has offered valuable insight into the complexity of local groups and insurgencies in Afghanistan and Pakistan. I've now discovered an analysis by Steve Hynd ("Cernig"), which I think is an excellent introduction to the political, economic, and social dimensions beyond the label "Taliban". It's reprinted below this report from Al Jazeera:

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fWT1kqoeszI[/youtube] 

Taliban: What's in a Name?

Two years into the Iraq war, moderately well read Westerners already knew that the insurgency there wasn't monolithic. Honest reporting repeatedly made clear that Al Qaeda, Sunni militant groups of various varieties and Sadrists didn't see eye to eye and often worked at cross purposes even while all were hostile to America and its allies.

Yet after seven years in Afghanistan, the same cannot be said about Western knowledge of militants in the region. There's a big, amorphous mass called "The Taliban" which is in cahoots with Al Qaeda - and that's about as fine grained as it usually gets.


That was sufficient back in 2001. The American-led coalition invaded to engage Osama bin Laden's group and the Taliban's organized fighters and on the battlefield itself Afghans quickly sorted into those who were either Al Qeada or Taliban, or those who were against them.

But it doesn't cover the current complex situation at all well,which means the West's voters are at a disadvantage when it comes to understanding - and approving or disapproving - their leaders' plans. As Brandon Friedman, a former officer who served in Afghanistan, put it in a recent email:

Instead of fighting organized theocratic government forces and their foreign terrorist guests, we're now arrayed against a Tatooine-esque combination actual foreign terrorists, actual Taliban fighters from two different countries, narco-warlords jockeying for regional power and influence, regular warlords jockeying for regional power and influence, angry Afghan citizens who've grown weary of civilian casualties, angry Afghan civilians who've grown weary of foreign forces and their broken promises, regular Afghan citizens who side with the Taliban out of sheer necessity for survival, angry opium farmers, Pakistani agents, and, finally, the invisible blight of government corruption.

Reducing that complexity to a simple "Us and Them" formula hinders much of the debate about Afghanistan.

So it was pleasant to see, among coverage of recent US missile strikes, a report by Mark Mazzetti, David Sanger and Eric Schmidt of the New York Times which tried to explain the various flavors of Taliban, their motives and their aims. The piece highlighted the difference between the Taliban group that Pakistan is most interested in opposing, Baitullah Mehsud's Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP), and the network run by Jalaluddin Haqqani, which is believed responsible for the campaign against Western forces in Afghanistan.

The latter group thinks the former has no business attacking Pakistani security forces or the Pakistani government, pointing to a reciprocal tension between Pakistan and the US-led coalition in Afghanistan. While the Pakistani government is happy to do peace deals with Haqqani's network and less so with Mehsud's, the coalition is more likely to eventually do so with the latter. Meanwhile, Pakistani counter-terror efforts are always going to focus on Mehsud's groups - which isn't all that useful to the West.

We could do with more of this kind of reporting about the region. In particular, we could do with more differentiation on press reports of the four or five main current strains of Taliban of interest to Western efforts in the region. That's the plea recently made by Frederick Kagan, in a short article for the National Review Online reproduced at the American Enterprise Institute:

There is no such thing as "the Taliban" today. Many different groups with different leaders and aims call themselves "Taliban," and many more are called "Taliban" by their enemies. In addition to Mullah Omar's Taliban based in Pakistan and indigenous Taliban forces in Afghanistan, there is an indigenous Pakistani Taliban controlled by Baitullah Mehsud (this group is thought to have been responsible for assassinating Benazir Bhutto). Both are linked with al-Qaeda, and both are dangerous and determined. In other areas, however, "Taliban" groups are primarily disaffected tribesmen who find it more convenient to get help from the Taliban than from other sources.

In general terms, any group that calls itself "Taliban" is identifying itself as against the government in Kabul, the U.S., and U.S. allies. Our job is to understand which groups are truly dangerous, which are irreconcilable with our goals for Afghanistan--and which can be fractured or persuaded to rejoin the Afghan polity. We can't fight them all, and we can't negotiate with them all. Dropping the term "Taliban" and referring to specific groups instead would be a good way to start understanding who is really causing problems.

Mullah Omar's Taliban - the original Afghanistan-ruling Taliban - is nowadays more under the day-to-day direction of Mullah Bradar (or Brehadar), Omar's trusted chief of military operations but it still leans heavily towards the position of Jalaluddin Haqqani's Taliban, which has largely supplanted it as the pre-eminent force in Afghanistan. Both are based in Pakistan but mostly interested in attacking allied forces in Afghanistan and the Afghan government. As one prominent member of Omar's group told Asia Times reporter Syed Saleem Shahzad last September:

It is necessary to understand that there is a sea of difference between the people who call themselves the Pakistan Tehrik-i-Taliban [led by Mehsud] and the Taliban. We have nothing to do with them. In fact, we oppose the policies they adhere to against the Pakistani security forces.

We individually speak to all groups, whether they are Pakistanis, Kashmiris, Arabs, Uzbeks or whosoever, telling them not to create violence in Pakistan, especially in the name of the Taliban.

Journalists in the West could do worse than refer to veteran reporter Anand Gopal's incisive look at the various competing groups of militants in the region, which also include the resurgent Hizb-i-Islami of charismatic fundamentalist Hekmatyar, who like Haqqani used to be one of those favored by both CIA and ISI intelligence agencies. Gopal writes of a "rainbow coalition" arrayed against U.S. troops, which is "competing commanders with differing ideologies and strategies, who nonetheless agree on one essential goal: kicking out the foreigners."

As Brandon Freidman writes, it's tempting to default to the soundbite term "Taliban" when talking about all these groups and to thus treat them as if they were one monolithic structure. But a more nuanced debate is not only healthy in any democracy, it might pave the way for Western public acceptance of what every military commander has said must eventually happen if there is ever to be real peace - an accord with more moderate groups to reconcile them to mainstream Afghan and Pakistani politics.

UPDATED: Mr Obama's War: Show Me the Money....

Update: Read closely, because this may be much worse than we reported. According to CNN, Obama is seeking $200 billion in supplementary money for the rest of Fiscal Year 2009: $75.5 billion to cover the cost of additional troop deployments and $130 billion in general funds. That is in addition to the $65 billion authorised by Congress for the first half of Fiscal Year 2009. So the grand total, if this is true, is a $265 billion top-up to the $534 billion Pentagon budget --- an effective 50% increase in expenditure.

Bloomberg reports, "President Barack Obama will seek $75.5 billion more for combat operations in Iraq and Afghanistan through the end of this fiscal year, according to three people familiar with the request." That makes a total "supplement" of $130 billion in addition to the $534 billion defense budget being sent to Congress today.

Just to recap: the supplementary funds --- $65 billion has already been approved by Congress --- about one-sixth of the $790 economic stimulus package that was signed by Obama this week after heated and sometimes bitter debate over the "pork" in the funding request.

Somehow I don't think Obama's request for war money will get the same kind of criticism. Indeed, if there's any sniping about it, it will be that the request is too low. Secretary of Defense Robert Gates wants even more money, and the President's total is at the "low end" of the Pentagon's credit-card application for an additional $130 to $140 billion.

Maybe more importantly, I'm betting that no one in Congress --- and possibly no one in the media --- joins the dots between this request and the little matter of the Federal budget deficit. You know, the one which will easily top $1 trillion next year.

So, for all those who think the real contest for national strength is economic rather than military: Sit Down. Shut Up. And the next time that Tom Friedman warbles in the New York Times about how China and India (whom I don't think are diverting quite so much into fighting wars rather than economic development) and some other country that we used to dominate is "taking over", just Look Away.

"Violent Semi-Peace" Update: US Soldiers Shot by Iraqi Police

Update (25 February): One of the US soldiers has died of his injuries. Details of the incident are still unclear.

Update (5:30 p.m.): The four US soldiers shot by Iraqi policemen were wounded, not killed. Their translator was slain.


In the "new Iraq", the narrative of a sharp decrease of violence, combined by the sheer length of the conflict from 2003, has mentioned that even the deaths of American troops get little notice. For example, today's New York Times headlines, "Iraq Accuses 12 Policemen in a String of Killings", and then mentions, "The announcement came as sporadic violence continued across Iraq, including the deaths of three American soldiers and their interpreter" in Diyala Province, north of Baghdad.

Another story is about to make its own headlines, however. Breaking news indicates that US soldiers and an interpreter have been shot by Iraqi policemen at a checkpoint on a bridge in Mosul. There are conflicting accounts over the numbers of dead and wounded.

Mr Obama's War: US Special Forces Training Pakistani Units, US Military Pressing Pakistani Allies

Related Post: Josh Mull on "Mr Obama's War" in Afghanistan and Pakistan
Related Post: Ceasefire in NW Pakistan; More on US Drone Strikes
Related Post: Mr Obama's War - Expanding the Enemies in Pakistan

The New York Times reports this morning, from US military sources, "More than 70 United States military advisers and technical specialists are secretly working in Pakistan to help its armed forces battle Al Qaeda and the Taliban in the country’s lawless tribal areas."

The secret task force, overseen by US Central Command and Special Operations Command, was created last summer. The US military that the task force training and information from the CIA has helped a new Pakistani commando unit to kill or capture up to 60 militants, including at least five high-ranking commanders, since last July.

This, however, is only the headline story. Underneath is an effort by the US military to put pressure on Pakistan. The sources claim that the task force "was launched with the support of the Pakistani Government and military". However, the Pakistanis still are holding back from an all-out offensive against the insurgents:

The main commanders of the Pakistani Taliban, including its leader, Baitullah Mehsud, and its leader in the Swat region, Maulana Fazlullah, remain at large. And senior American military officials remain frustrated that they have been unable to persuade the chief of the Pakistani Army, Gen. Ashfaq Parvez Kayani, to embrace serious counterinsurgency training for the army itself....
The American officials acknowledge that at the very moment when Washington most needs Pakistan’s help, the greater tensions between Pakistan and India since the terrorist attacks in Mumbai last November have made the Pakistani Army less willing to shift its attention to the Qaeda and Taliban threat.

It is no coincidence that Kayani is in Washington this week for the White House review on Afghanistan and Pakistan. He will be having direct meetings with Secretary of Defense Robert Gates and the US Joint Chief of Staff.

Bottom line? Expect more US-backed attacks on the military front against the bad guys and expect more psychological warfare against any Pakistani officials who appear reluctant to get on with the campaign, either by holding back on the battlefield or by offering political concessions to the local "Taliban" groups.