New Order | ATTACKERMAN

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New Order
By: Spencer Ackerman Saturday February 28, 2009 5:43 pm	Tweet

Defense Secretary Bob Gates told reporters on Friday that Obama’s combat-troop withdrawal plan had the support of Gens. David Petraeus and Raymond Odierno. I imagine he’s going to send that message on the chat shows tomorrow as well. And that got me thinking: What hasn’t happened in the month between Obama’s inauguration and the withdrawal speech? There haven’t been damaging quotes from anonymous military officials to the Washington Post and the New York Times about how Obama was gambling with the hard-won security gains in Iraq in order to appease his political base. Jack Keane hasn’t been all over TV saying that Obama is a liberal version of Bush, ready to disregard his best military advice to suit an ideological agenda. And there hasn’t been a metanarrative in the press about heavy-handed Obama political hacks acting as if they know strategy better than the generals.

What happened? At least two things. First, my understanding is that Petraeus was impressed that Obama didn’t solicit his advice in a superficial way, but seemed genuinely interested in making Petraeus a partner for devising the plan. Second, with regard to Odierno, one of Odierno’s key concerns was having a significant force in place through the next two rounds of Iraqi elections this year — district and sub-district in August and national in December — and so Obama basically gave him what he wanted. If you go here, you can read a letter that Odierno issued yesterday to his troops about the withdrawal plan:

Notice how Odierno praises the plan for its "flexibility," for the "extensive consultation" displayed by Obama in creating it, and for fulfilling the obligations placed on the U.S. for withdrawal commensurate with the Status of Forces Agreement. Further notice how Odierno says the plan will basically phase combat-troop withdrawal over six months, and then largely pause the drawdown at "a robust level" until the elections period ends, after which withdrawal will continue. Basically, it looks like Obama gave Odierno most of 2009 to keep levels at a level the general’s comfortable with. Don’t be surprised if we end the year with over 100,000 troops in Iraq; it appears to be the cost of withdrawing to 55,000 by next summer.

(On a defense-nerd level, also notice we’ve got a new acronym! Advisory and Assistance Brigades, or AABs, will replace the Brigade Combat Teams in Iraq. Creeping Nagl-ism! Seriously, I hope to have some reporting for you soon on what this very new structure actually looks like.)

8 Comments

8 Responses to “New Order”

macaquerman February 28th, 2009 at 5:59 pm

Without asking for ANYTHING specific, is your understanding of Petraeus’ view of his meetings with Obama solidly grounded?

lokywoky February 28th, 2009 at 7:47 pm

The only major problem I have is this classification of a ‘combat’ troop vs a ‘non-combat’ troop.

Every soldier in the Army or Marines, every sailor, and every air force person goes through boot camp. One of the things they all learn is how to handle a weapon.

Once they are deployed – they all have a weapon (usually more than one) and they all know very well how to use them. This includes cooks and janitors (oh sorry – KBR sub-sub-sub-sub-contractors do this now).

But whatever you want to call them, a troop with a gun, if faced with a situation, immediately reverts to a combat troop.

I am sure the Irakis are not a dumb as Ray Odierno seems to think they are, and the idea of ‘reclassifying’ troops as one thing or another is just dumb.

So – I am trusting that Obama means what he says when he stated that we will comply with the SOFA and that by the end of 2011, ALL troops will be out of Irak.

macaquerman February 28th, 2009 at 8:01 pm

In response to lokywoky @ 2

If you take the combat teams out, you can be sure that the remainung troops are in a defense posture and and are unlikely resort to their weapons only if fired upon.
What problem do you have beyond not trusting Odierno?

Bose February 28th, 2009 at 8:18 pm

One of the things that strikes me about withdrawal plan is that Obama was determined to give the generals a fair shot at beating the targets. The best way to demonstrate mismanagement by the Bush administration will be to put a thoughtful, achievable strategy in place and deliver the final piece a little under budget and ahead of schedule.

Spencer Ackerman February 28th, 2009 at 8:33 pm

In response to macaquerman @ 1

I wouldn’t portray it as super detailed, but I am confident that what I wrote above is indeed well grounded.

Spencer Ackerman February 28th, 2009 at 8:36 pm

In response to lokywoky @ 2

This is why I’m trying to get some details on what the AABs will actually be. Here’s what Gates told reporters on the Friday conference call. As you can see, it’s not very specific, but:

All of the combat units will be out of Iraq by the end of August in 2010. And those that are left will have a combat capability. There will be, as the President said, targeted counterterrorism operations. There will be continued embeds with some of the Iraqi forces in a training capacity and so on. So there will be the capability, but the units will be gone. And more importantly, the mission will have changed. And so the notion of being engaged in combat in the way we have been up until now will be completely different.

So I’m trying to get some clarity. It may very well be that the details of the AABs — a new structure — are still being worked out.

macaquerman February 28th, 2009 at 8:38 pm

In response to Spencer Ackerman @ 5

You’re just nothing but good news of late.

Kilo March 1st, 2009 at 1:40 am