[A-List] How Obama Lost Control of Iraq Policy

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Originally in subscriber only Le Monde, billed as:

US MILITARY PLANNED TO SUBVERT AGREEMENT ON WITHDRAWAL

How Obama lost control of Iraq policy *

by Gareth Porter

Everyone wondered, when Obama won the election, if he would
hold to his pledge to withdraw from Iraq. The Pentagon and
its political allies had other plans, and were already
seeking to reverse the United States' existing agreement with
the Iraqi government

Original text in English
First Published 2009-01-02

How Obama Lost Control of Iraq Policy

http://www.middle-east-online.com/english/?id=29519

[There is a continued military insistence on a conditions-based approach 
to a US withdrawal from Iraq that is part of a broader plan by Bush 
administration and military officials to evade key provisions of the 
SOFA , which has just begun to take effect, says Gareth Porter.]


After Barack Obama’s electoral victory in November, one of the major 
questions was whether he would hold to his pledge during the campaign to 
withdraw US combat troops from Iraq within 16 months. The fate of that 
withdrawal plan was seen as an indicator of Obama’s broader foreign 
policy orientation and the role he would play in foreign and national 
security policy.

There was conflict between the president-elect and the US military 
leadership, known to oppose his withdrawal policy. But Obama had 
unusually strong convictions on Iraq. The struggle reflects a 
fundamental choice between strategic withdrawal from Iraq and an attempt 
to prolong the US military presence in the country beyond 2011.

Obama’s withdrawal plan was not a mere sop to his anti-war Democratic 
activist base; it reflected a carefully considered personal strategic 
analysis. The clearest statement of Obama’s strategic rationale for a 
speedy withdrawal came on 15 July 2008, when Obama said the US military 
involvement in Iraq “distracts us from every threat that we face and so 
many opportunities we could seize.” The Iraq war, he argued, “diminishes 
our security, our standing in the world, our military, our economy, and 
the resources that we need to confront the challenges of the 21st century.”

In a New York Times op-ed on 14 July, Obama said his plan would involve 
“tactical adjustments” and vowed to “consult with commanders on the 
ground and the Iraqi government to ensure that our troops were 
redeployed safely.” But at a press conference two days later, he 
explained that these caveats would not affect the larger 16-month 
deadline for withdrawal, but related only to the pace of withdrawal “in 
certain months” to assure the safety of American troops being withdrawn.

Obama insisted that he would not adjust his schedule to bring it into 
line with the recommendation of General David Petraeus, the top 
commander in Iraq. “The president’s job,” said Obama, “is to tell the 
generals what their mission is.” And when Obama finally met Petraeus in 
Baghdad later that month, he rejected his elaborate argument for a 
“conditions-based” withdrawal, according to Joe Klein’s account in Time 
magazine, and insisted that he would make the decision based on his own 
evaluation of costs of continuing US presence.

There was one ambiguity. He suggested that he would keep a “residual 
force in Iraq” to perform “limited missions,” which he defined as 
including force protection and training of Iraqi security forces, but 
also “going after any remnants of al-Qaida in Mesopotamia.” But he had 
earlier made it clear that the forces targeting al-Qaida would be based 
elsewhere in the Middle East.

The al-Maliki bombshell

Obama, like everyone else in Washington, was expecting the US-Iraqi 
Status of Forces Agreement (SOFA) then under negotiation to allow a 
long-term US military presence in the country. Even in mid-August, the 
Bush administration was still insisting that the dates for withdrawal of 
combat forces would be only “time targets” and thus dependent on 
“conditions.” However, Iraqi prime minister Nuri al-Maliki unexpectedly 
forced Bush to accept the complete withdrawal of all combat troops by 
the end of 2011, and also the complete withdrawal of all non-combat 
troops by the same date. He also demanded that US troops withdraw from 
cities and towns by June 2009 and regroup in bases to be located by 
agreement with Iraq.

The final SOFA agreement accepted by the Bush administration on 6 
November requires Washington to turn over a detailed schedule for 
complete withdrawal and even create “mechanisms and arrangements” to 
reduce US forces levels within the specified time period. It forbids US 
troops from operating in the country without full Iraqi approval and 
coordination, and from detaining Iraqis without an Iraqi court order. It 
includes an absolute ban on the use of Iraqi territory or airspace to 
“launch attacks against other countries”.

The Pentagon plan

So by the time Obama had been elected, his 16-month withdrawal timetable 
was very much in line with the intent of the US-Iraq agreement. But the 
US military leadership was far from reconciled with his plan -- or with 
the terms imposed by the SOFA. And it soon became apparent that the 
military and Pentagon bureaucracy had a plan to roll back the agreement.

Within 72 hours of Obama’s election, Time magazine quoted the commander 
of US forces in Iraq, General Raymond Odierno, as saying that the 
withdrawal of US forces would have to be done “slowly, in a deliberate 
way, so we don’t give back the gains we’ve had”. Time reported that 
“senior US military officials” were likely to advise Obama to “adjust 
his campaign pledge to withdraw all US combat troops from Iraq by mid-2010.”

Three days later the Washington Post reported that Admiral Michael 
Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, opposed Obama’s timeline 
for withdrawal as “dangerous” and still held to the military’s 
insistence that “reductions must depend on conditions on the ground.” 
Citing “defence experts,” the Post reported that conflict between Obama 
and these military leaders would be “inevitable” if Obama were to press 
for the withdrawal of two brigades per month, as he had reaffirmed on 
his own website after the election.

Speaking to reporters on 16 November, Mullen publicly declared his 
intention to advise Obama to make the pace and scale of withdrawal 
dependent on events on the ground. That announcement represented an open 
challenge to the president-elect.

The Post reported on 18 November, the day of the signing of the 
agreement, that Pentagon officials said the time frame envisioned in the 
agreement gives them adequate time to safely remove all equipment and 
roughly 150,000 US troops from Iraq, but had “reiterated that such a 
withdrawal should take place only if conditions warrant it.” These 
officials, who understood that the agreement had rejected the 
conditions-based approach in favour of a firm timetable, were asserting 
that in effect the United States should not be bound by the deadline for 
withdrawal in the agreement it had just signed.

It soon became clear that the continued military insistence on a 
conditions-based approach was part of a broader plan by Bush 
administration and military officials to evade key provisions of the 
SOFA. McClatchy newspapers reported on 25 November that Bush 
administration officials had secretly adopted “interpretations” of the 
ban on the use of Iraqi bases to launch attacks on other countries and 
the requirement to notify the Iraqi government in advance of US military 
operations that would allow the US to “circumvent” those legal 
constraints. It planned to use the “right of self-defence” in the 
agreement to justify any strike against targets in Syria and Iran, and 
to argue that it would only have to inform Iraqi officials of plans for 
operations in a given province during a given month.

The Bush administration had kept these “interpretations” secret from the 
Iraqi government, which would clearly have rejected them out of hand. In 
fact, they were not “interpretations” of the agreement but proposals to 
subvert it. The provision governing US military operations requires not 
just notification but “the approval of the Iraqi government” and “full 
coordination with Iraqi authorities.” The prohibition against “attacks 
against other countries” in the agreement is absolute and unconditional.

An even more serious ploy conceived by Pentagon planners to subvert the 
intention of the SOFA was revealed by the New York Times, which reported 
on 4 December that “Pentagon planners” were proposing “relabelling some 
units, so that those currently counted as combat troops could be 
‘re-missioned’, their efforts redefined as training and support for the 
Iraqis.” The Times suggested, with a straight face, that the proposed 
“relabelling” was a method by which “Mr. Obama’s goal could be 
accomplished at least in part.”

Of course, it was just the opposite. The Times said the Pentagon 
planners were projecting that as many as 70,000 US troops would be 
maintained in Iraq “for a substantial time even beyond 2011”.

What the plan for keeping combat troops indefinitely in Iraq under the 
guise of “training and support” troops, the insistence by Adm. Mullen 
and other military leaders on “conditions-based withdrawal”, and the 
devising of justifications for ignoring the limitations on US operations 
all had in common was the intention by the US military and its civilian 
allies to reverse both the Obama withdrawal plan and the US-Iraq agreement.

Why Gates was necessary

Obama was confronted with a Pentagon bureaucracy that was signalling its 
determination to pursue a course in Iraq that was in direct 
contradiction to his own policy, and to the clear intent of the Iraqi 
government. The pressure on Obama to keep the secretary of defence 
Robert M. Gates at the Pentagon should be understood in light of this 
open challenge to his leadership.

The pressure began within 24 hours of Obama’s election; the New York 
Times said the case for asking Gates to stay on at the Pentagon “is 
being made publicly by columnists and commentators, and quietly by 
leading Congressional voices of Mr. Obama’s own party.”

The public rationale for this unprecedented appointment was continuity 
and stability at a time when the United States was involved in two wars. 
But according to a source close to the Obama transition team, the 
reasoning was frankly political: The Democrats were concerned about 
their presumed political vulnerability on national security and wanted 
to have Gates, as a Republican, preside over the Iraq policy, to give 
them political cover.

The policy implication of Obama’s choice of Gates is clear. Gates was 
known to be opposed to Obama’s withdrawal plan, with the military 
leadership. And it is inconceivable that he was not fully involved in 
the Pentagon planning for a policy that would seek to reverse the 
US-Iraq withdrawal agreement and prolong the US military presence 
indefinitely. Given its broad scope and multilevel character, it is 
likely that he was at the centre of it.

Although Obama may continue to issue statements on Iraq policy, the 
Gates nomination signalled that control of the issue has already passed 
from the White House to the Pentagon. If he is displeased with what 
Gates does on Iraq, Obama cannot threaten to fire him. Based on the 
evidence that has already come to light, the Pentagon can be expected to 
continue, under Obama, to use all means available to subvert the 
agreement -- and the Iraqi regime -- in order to establish a long-term 
military presence.

The story of how Obama came to yield effective control over his Iraq 
policy is a profound lesson on the nature of power on an issue of 
particular interest to the military leadership and its civilian allies. 
It has shown just how weak the democratic system’s defence is against 
the influence of the US military and its allies when they are determined 
to have their way.

Gareth Porter is a historian and foreign policy analyst and author of 
Perils of Dominance: Imbalance of Power and the Road to War in Vietnam, 
University of California Press, 2005.

Copyright ©2009 Le Monde diplomatique

(Distributed by Agence Global)

http://www.middle-east-online.com/english/?id=29519