Iraq - entry or exit ?

[Italian Guy]

As I went through Doody's "must read article on Iraq" I thought I might add this.
After elections and after the new government formation terrorist attacks on the country have enormously increased.
Nevertheless, the Sunni are starting to join the system, and the Zarqawi boys are having trouble with local nomadic tribes in the Al Anbar province.
How much is done with the Iraqi new Army?
How much is done as far as the economy (oil, pipeline sabotage etc) ?
Are the Western troops still numerous enough?

I'd be glad to hear your opinion, thoroughly explained and debated.

Thank you.

 

[KC72]

Unless there are some political changes in the main countries there (UK, USA Australia), were in for the long haul. There is no way the current Iraqi police or military could handle the situation.

 

[silent driller]

I predict that it will end up almost like Korea, where we will have forces to some degree for years. Only it won't be because of any particular region attacking another. It will be because of warlords.

 

[Chocobo_Blitzer]

Couple more years....

 

[Missileer]

Although I hate the thought of an extended police action in the Middle East, it has to be done. It seems that the countries willing to fight this war can be counted with the fingers on one hand and the World joke UN is more of a hindrance than help. The reluctance of the "World community" to see that this extremist threat is not going away and the more prolonged the war, the more civilian casualties there will be. While Rome burns, the fat cats of the world will fiddle and gripe about body counts.

 

[MontyB]

Although I hate the thought of an extended police action in the Middle East, it has to be done. It seems that the countries willing to fight this war can be counted with the fingers on one hand and the World joke UN is more of a hindrance than help. The reluctance of the "World community" to see that this extremist threat is not going away and the more prolonged the war, the more civilian casualties there will be. While Rome burns, the fat cats of the world will fiddle and gripe about body counts.

Hey leave the UN out of this, it didnt support the war from the start and it has taken no part in it since. If nothing else it has at least stuck to its principles over that.

As far as the "world community" goes I would suggest that they are living by the old retail motto..."you broke it, you buy it" and really have no interest in cleaning up someone elses mess.


Anyway back to teh questions at hand:

Nevertheless, the Sunni are starting to join the system, and the Zarqawi boys are having trouble with local nomadic tribes in the Al Anbar province.
How much is done with the Iraqi new Army?
How much is done as far as the economy (oil, pipeline sabotage etc) ?
Are the Western troops still numerous enough?

I think the current state of the Iraqi army is the big question, if the original post is accurate then the US is going to be trapped in Iraq for centuries to come, if it isnt then there is some light at the end of the tunnel and things could be "stabilised" within a few years.

Economy wise its much the same however once the insurgency is in its final stages the economy and social development of the country should take off, after all this is a well educated and potentially wealthy nation.

However if you look at the history of the middle east Iraqi democracy has probably got more to fear from a well trained army than anything else, coup's seem to be popular in the region.

 

[Whispering Death]

I think that we will begin to see a troop reduction by this time next year, but it just isn't possible for the Americans to leave iraq in 12 months because it takes a long time once troop reduction has began for it to complete. I think we'll have most of the troops home in 2.5 years.

 

[FO Seaman]

I have read some of the replies to this thread, but with some I must disagree. I agree with silent driller, We took Germany in 1945 and we had an Armor unit there until 85', same with Korea.

 

[Whispering Death]

I have read some of the replies to this thread, but with some I must disagree. I agree with silent driller, We took Germany in 1945 and we had an Armor unit there until 85', same with Korea.

Oh, it's a given that we will ALWAYS have some forces in Iraq. There are 2 large and 2 medium sized airbases that will be US property for the rest of our lives much like Guantanamo even if the whole country goes to shit. Iraq is going to be where we are going to stage a lot of supplies so that if we can be ready if we need to fight any of the nations boardering Iraq. Now we don't have to have a friendly country in the region where we can stage our troops, we've already got the infustrucute to deploy our forces in the region.

What this thread is discussing is when we will have almost all the troops back. We'll probobly always have like 5,000 soldiers in Iraq but that's A LOT smaller than 130,000. And due to the strategic situation there will be a gradual withdrawal; there will never be a big 100,000 soldier ticker tape parade where all our boys come home at once.

 

[SHERMAN]

have read some of the replies to this thread, but with some I must disagree. I agree with silent driller, We took Germany in 1945 and we had an Armor unit there until 85', same with Korea.

Yes, but both of those counties needed that presence as part of their defense against foreign attacks.

 

[Missileer]

Although I hate the thought of an extended police action in the Middle East, it has to be done. It seems that the countries willing to fight this war can be counted with the fingers on one hand and the World joke UN is more of a hindrance than help. The reluctance of the "World community" to see that this extremist threat is not going away and the more prolonged the war, the more civilian casualties there will be. While Rome burns, the fat cats of the world will fiddle and gripe about body counts.

Hey leave the UN out of this, it didnt support the war from the start and it has taken no part in it since. If nothing else it has at least stuck to its principles over that.]

http://www.state.gov/p/nea/rls/01fs/14906.htm

I think this should enumerate the UNSC Resolutions broken by Iraq before the conflict. You can't post and run with "off thread" without backing up posts without references, it's not nice.

 

[chewie_nz]

Although I hate the thought of an extended police action in the Middle East, it has to be done. It seems that the countries willing to fight this war can be counted with the fingers on one hand and the World joke UN is more of a hindrance than help. The reluctance of the "World community" to see that this extremist threat is not going away and the more prolonged the war, the more civilian casualties there will be. While Rome burns, the fat cats of the world will fiddle and gripe about body counts.

Hey leave the UN out of this, it didnt support the war from the start and it has taken no part in it since. If nothing else it has at least stuck to its principles over that.]

http://www.state.gov/p/nea/rls/01fs/14906.htm

I think this should enumerate the UNSC Resolutions broken by Iraq before the conflict. You can't post and run with "off thread" without backing up posts without references, it's not nice.

the US still has a healthy number of banned weapons does it not?

and how many international treaty's has the US blown apart in the past 10 years or so?

clearly there is a "world community" and it is everyone bar the US, self interest will be the death of us all

 

[kirit12]

Believe me, there is going to be no large scale military withdrawal from Iraq for the next 3-4 years. If the current insurgency attacks continue, I think we will be stuck there for quite some time.

 

[Missileer]

the US still has a healthy number of banned weapons does it not?

and how many international treaty's has the US blown apart in the past 10 years or so?

clearly there is a "world community" and it is everyone bar the US, self interest will be the death of us all

And all of your sources for these tidbits of propaganda....?

 

[Kilgore]

I hate this but i have to say that Iraq needs some hard arse leaders like saddam to deal with the insurgents. These rebels are the same people saddam had to deal with and he always managed to dispose of them. Because the nation is somewhat still an anarchy in plenty of regions, it gives these insurgents their chance to fight for their extreme political views.

 

[MontyB]

Although I hate the thought of an extended police action in the Middle East, it has to be done. It seems that the countries willing to fight this war can be counted with the fingers on one hand and the World joke UN is more of a hindrance than help. The reluctance of the "World community" to see that this extremist threat is not going away and the more prolonged the war, the more civilian casualties there will be. While Rome burns, the fat cats of the world will fiddle and gripe about body counts.

Hey leave the UN out of this, it didn't support the war from the start and it has taken no part in it since. If nothing else it has at least stuck to its principles over that.]

http://www.state.gov/p/nea/rls/01fs/14906.htm

I think this should enumerate the UNSC Resolutions broken by Iraq before the conflict. You can't post and run with "off thread" without backing up posts without references, it's not nice.

Yep I have had that list presented before but in all honesty a lot of it is outdated and was made invalid by the ending of Gulf War 1 a sizable chunk of the remaining resolutions were grudgingly met by Iraqs readmission of weapons inspections teams in 2002, this combined with what UN and subsequent US weapons inspections teams have determined pretty much indicates that Iraq did meet its WMD and disclosure requirements therefore other than a few deployment and human rights issues (which many countries on earth are guilty of) Iraq met everyone of those resolutions.

Now for the counter argument and I only have one point to make:
Compliance to UNSCR's is determined by the UN and not individual nations therefore until the UN says "Yep that resolution has been broken lets do something about it" you cannot blame the UN for creating this mess nor can you expect them to sanction cash or supply cannon fodder to fix it.

 

[Whispering Death]

I hate this but i have to say that Iraq needs some hard arse leaders like saddam to deal with the insurgents. These rebels are the same people saddam had to deal with and he always managed to dispose of them. Because the nation is somewhat still an anarchy in plenty of regions, it gives these insurgents their chance to fight for their extreme political views.

As Rousseau said, fanaticism is not something that can be fought with logic, but only force.

It has been my opinion that what Iraq needed was a hard nosed intermediate ruler to clamp down and secure the nation before handing it over to the elected politicians. I'm thinking Mac Arthur in Japan.

However, the current strategy seems to be working fairly well, but history will be the judge of whether Mr. Bush was indeed smarter than I am

 

[Lord Londonderry]

US forces will have to stay for many years.

It will be interesting to see if continued US presence draws in more insurgency forces over the next decade.

This didn't happen in 1945!!

Anyone who compares the situations in Germany or Japan post WW2 with Iraq is living in fantasy land :lol:

 

[LeEnfield]

Having gone there and broken up all the systems of government that they had in place, you can't just walk away if you are taking a few casualties, you have to see this through to end if you expect to have any credibility left in the world. The Terrorist have watched America pull out of so many places when the death toll starts to mount, and they know if they just keep plugging away and the American politicians will want the troops to come home. It is this more than any thing that is causing the problems over there and once the terrorist know that America wont pull out to till things have settled down will things get any better.

 

[Missileer]

Yep I have had that list presented before but in all honesty a lot of it is outdated and was made invalid by the ending of Gulf War 1 a sizable chunk of the remaining resolutions were grudgingly met by Iraqs readmission of weapons inspections teams in 2002, this combined with what UN and subsequent US weapons inspections teams have determined pretty much indicates that Iraq did meet its WMD and disclosure requirements therefore other than a few deployment and human rights issues (which many countries on earth are guilty of) Iraq met everyone of those resolutions.

Now for the counter argument and I only have one point to make:
Compliance to UNSCR's is determined by the UN and not individual nations therefore until the UN says "Yep that resolution has been broken lets do something about it" you cannot blame the UN for creating this mess nor can you expect them to sanction cash or supply cannon fodder to fix it.

Cannon fodder is one of those expressions I don't care for when addressing warriors.

Man, all I can do is present the facts and reference them, what you choose to do with them is strictly up to you.

By the way, I can't glean a lot of information from your profile. It would sure help in considering your ideas on various subjects.