A must-read article on Iraq (IMO, why Kerry's plan is best)

Roadblocks to Withdrawal: An Interview with Daniel Ellsberg about Iraq


Two obstacles stand in the way of the prompt and safe return of US troops from Iraq, according to Daniel Ellsberg. First, a real “mission accomplished” is unlikely any time soon. Second, President Bush doesn’t want their prompt return.
By Brad Kennedy
December 9, 2005

Two obstacles stand in the way of the prompt and safe return of US troops from Iraq, according to Daniel Ellsberg. First, a real “mission accomplished” is unlikely any time soon. Second, President Bush doesn’t want their prompt return.


Ellsberg disavows claim to expertise in Mid-Eastern affairs, but without question he has deep experience with wars of insurgency and with embattled American presidents. He incurred the ire of President Richard Nixon by making public the Department of Defense’s secret history of the Vietnam War, commonly known as the Pentagon Papers, which he helped compile. His firsthand knowledge of our Vietnam policy serves as his prism for viewing our involvement in Iraq, and it reveals disturbing parallels.


Ellsberg aired his views publicly several times in New Jersey, starting November 12, 2005 at a fund-raiser for New Jersey Peace Action and moving on to local colleges, and he sat for a 90-minute interview to round out his views for this article. His appearances are part of the promotion of his long-awaited personal account, Secrets: A Memoir of Vietnam and the Pentagon Papers. (New York: Penguin Books, 2003)

The Fatal Flaw

In Ellsberg’s view, the fatal flaw of the 2003 invasion of Iraq has always been that it made the US an occupying power vulnerable to a war of insurgency. He’s hardly out of step when he asserts this. Military chroniclers since Julius Caesar have bemoaned the risks and hardships of occupation. Avoiding these very perils governed US policy during the first Gulf War, recalls Gen. Brent Scowcroft. The president’s National Security Advisor at that time, Scowcroft said in a recent New Yorker interview that President Bush, ’41, had no trouble grasping the risks of extending the war to Baghdad. Since World War II only one outside power, the British in Malaysia, has fought a successful counter-insurgency war. Whatever magic Sir Robert Thompson, the mastermind of that British effort, may have possessed failed to rub off on the US effort in Vietnam during his separate stints advising both Presidents Kennedy and Nixon.


Snip…

Ellsberg readily acknowledges American troop withdrawal to be a painful solution but, he says there are no good solutions. Great pain may accompany US withdrawal, but that pain largely will be the inevitable consequence of the improper strategy of occupation at the outset, just as is the pain suffered on a daily basis in Iraq now. Withdrawal is the solution, not the problem. It is the only solution because “there isn’t going to be any improvement if the US stays in Iraq.”

As both a participant in and a careful student of the Vietnam War, Ellsberg is no stranger to such pain. He understands the hardships and sacrifices American troops suffer every day trying to improve the lives of Iraqis and to make the world safer. He saw plenty of the same in Vietnam. He also saw what happens when you refuse to face the realities of the battlefield and execute an orderly withdrawal, such as the pandemonium engulfing the evacuation of the American embassy in Saigon in ’75.

Snip…

Once again, Ellsberg appears less out of step than out front by advocating withdrawal of the 160,000 US troops in Iraq as the December elections approach there. Clearly, there is no more “cut and run” in Ellsberg, a former Marine officer, than there is in John Murtha, a decorated Vietnam vet who retired as a colonel in the Marine Reserves….

Snip…

At the Iraqi reconciliation conference on Nov. 21st in Cairo, sponsored by the Arab League, the Iraqi factions memorialized the one point upon which they could agree: “a withdrawal of foreign troops on a specified timetable, dependent on an immediate national program for rebuilding the security forces.” So, the Army, the Iraqis, Ellsberg and Murtha agree withdrawal of some sort is necessary, with the latter two holding that withdrawal should be immediate and independent of events controlled by the Iraqis.



Why Bush Won’t Budge

Where Ellsberg stands apart is by asserting that President Bush and his advisors are the obstacle to a timely, safe return of US troops. “The problem is that the President wants to stay. You have to want to get out, and he’s not remotely interested in hearing about it.”


Snip…

Another Rand Corporation analyst—a former one—Daniel Ellsberg, summed up where he thought this would lead: “We are going to be in Iraq far longer than we were in Vietnam, because there was no oil in Vietnam.”

Not that this is just about oil, it is about anti-terrorism, too. The essence of the Bush policy is a meld of plentiful oil and anti-terrorism. Right or wrong, the White House Iraq Group believes we cannot confront the bankers of Bin Laden, because they are also our local filling station. We will only be free to stand up to the Saudis when we are less dependent on their gas pumps. This must have put the Bush family’s personal relationship with the royal Saudi family to the test.

There is a larger problem, though. The pipeline Iraq can offer the US will be secure only as long as it is secured, and that means US military bases, perhaps “over-the horizon,” as Murtha suggests, but bases for the foreseeable future nonetheless.


Snip…

A Matter of Means

The strategy of permanent or enduring bases, for all its tactical advantages, is but a variant of occupation, subject to the various hazards and risks intrinsic to occupation. As time passes and construction on these bases progresses, the intent of the US will be less a matter of words and more a matter of fact verifiable by the Islamic eye. About the same time the US mission in Iraq will emerge from the shadows into the light of day and the American people will have a fundamental choice to make. Americans will finally see that choice as not about the ends or purposes of the Iraq mission, but about the means used to achieve them. Everyone can applaud plentiful oil and effective anti-terrorism, but it is the means that will determine if the US achieves those goals and at what cost.

Snip...

All that is in the past now. But what unintended consequences will America’s future actions bring? It is the future about which Daniel Ellsberg worries. “I’m afraid we are looking at a widening of the war right now to Iran and Syria.”


http://www.vaiw.org/vet/modules.php?op=modload&name=News&file=article&sid=2062&mode=thread&order=0&thold=0




Gist: Withdrawal is the only solution and Bush has no intention of carrying out that solution.

I'm no expert on any of this stuff, but from a common sense reading, this is one of the best overall pictures of the Iraq situation by far. Ellsberg’s understanding of the complexities of the situation and implied endorsement by the VAIW by inclusion on their site gives the report much credence.

It's great that Ellsberg acknowledges up front his lack of expertise in Middle Eastern affairs. No doubt, Kerry's experience in foreign affairs would allows him to fill in the gaps.

Ellsberg clearly supports immediate withdrawal---a variant of Murtha's plan---while pointing out that it should be accomplished safely, in contrast to the precarious withdrawal from Vietnam. And while he says immediate the article further points out that it will take time to accomplish this.

As Ellsberg explains why Bush's foray into this debacle over oil, he mentions the terrorist bank network. Again, Kerry not only has expertise in this area, but he also helped to define it.

Then the crux of the "over the horizon" is revealed: it is a "variant of occupation," better known as permanent bases. And in a region where anti-American sentiment was already high (in countries that are perceived allies—Pakistan and Saudi Arabia are leading examples), Bush has managed to single-handedly exhaust nearly every bit of America’s goodwill and give rise to the widespread appeal of fundamentalism (Egypt, most recent example). Where does the US set up these bases that will ultimately diffuse this thinking and allay the potential for, as Ellsberg suggests, "a widening of the war right now to Iran and Syria"?

Kerry’s expertise—his knowledge of the region, his understanding of America's reliance on oil, his experience in Vietnam, his prosecution of the BCCI case, his respect for people and cultures—points to exactly why his plan addresses all these difficult realities so well.


As Kerry mentioned, America needs to remove itself from the internal conflict in the Arab world and go about the business of repairing relations.

and its not just because of being a huge Kerry supporter, but because I believe in common sense and reasoning, and his plan does that.

I was googling around and found this article when Kerry was in Iraq in January.

Kerry cheered in Baghdad, decries Bush team's 'blunders'
Once criticized for war stance, he says force alone won't win

He is still saying the same thing, he knows what to do, I wish Washington would wake up and listen, he so wants our troops to come home safely and as quickly as can be done without putting them in more harm.



http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/chronicle/archive/2005/01/06/MNG2VALREG1.DTL

There were all those great photos of Kerry meeting and greeting leaders and people in the Middle East.

He doesn't just see which way the political winds are blowing. He digs in and talks to all of the experts before coming up with the best, most well-thought-out plan. He makes good use of his own brains, too.

It looks like the Arab nations agree with him. They want an orderly withdrawal dependent on building up the Iraqi security forces. Kerry's plan puts pressure on them to build up those forces--by offering definite promises about when we will withdraw, not something vague like the WH's.
I also like Kerry's emphasis on helping Iraq in working toward political solutions. And his point about getting away from dependence on Mid-East oil, which is at the heart of it all.

I agree, the WHIG probably has no intention of giving up control. They may, like Nixon was, have to be forced. The Congress has the power to take away the money now, as they did back then--if they only would. Maybe after the '06 elections.

options before making a move or forming a plan. In a situation like this it is important to do this. I trust his judgment on this more than Murtha.

evil ways, has a point. Can you imagine if we suddenly didn't have enough oil in America? Our economy would collapse. Can alternatives to oil come quick enough? The problem is everyone thinks in an all or nothing fashion. * won't really talk about getting off oil, because of his old pals at Exxon Mobil, et al. He's putting all of his eggs in the Project Middle East basket, which is very shortsighted. On the other hand, many liberals say "no blood for oil" in terms of the Iraq War, like it's some kind of abstract concept when in fact, our economic security depends on the free flow of oil. I am most worried about Iraq because of the oil and al Qaeda. If the ME fell into chaos, it would be like "who cares" if it were not for the fact that we NEED their oil and that in a global world, it is relatively easy for terrorists, trained in the street fights of Iraq, can use their know how on us and Europe once again with deadly precision.

And yet there are many Americans who barely pay attention to the war . . .

and the fact that it not all or nothing. What the article points out is the means, Bush's versus another approach. IMO, the approach is to work aggressively toward stability in the region, get the oil through negotiation and become less dependent on it over time.

That's got to be one of the major ironies of this whole thing. While everybody is running in circles and ranting about truth tellers and guts to speak the truth regardless of political consequences, Kerry is the only one who really does it. He has been out in front on Iraq since befor it even started. He has struck a clear position, never waivered from it, always put the troops first, always considered the whole of the ME and the Iraqi people, always sought the best outcome, no matter what it did to him politically. Certainly it has been difficult to walk that tightrope and get different factions to understand what he's saying, but his basic strategy has always been the same.

Funny how he is portrayed as evasive while the ones with the real whopping flip-flops, from both extremes, are hailed as the gutsy truth tellers.

page here.

Real Security in the Post 9/11 World
http://www.kerry.senate.gov/v3/cfm/record.cfm?id=249580


Post w/highlights from above speech
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=273x57421#57447


Senator John Kerry Lays Out Path Forward in Iraq
If Administration Acts Responsibly, We Can Stabilize Iraq and Reduce Combat Forces With Successful December Elections, Draw Down 20,000 Troops by the End of 2005
Senator John Kerry "The Path Forward" Georgetown University October 26, 2005 As prepared for delivery
http://kerry.senate.gov/v3/cfm/record.cfm?id=247764

No one posted the Ellsberg analysis there yet. Combined with Kerry's plan and your analysis, I think it's very powerful.