Anthony Cordesman
Anthony Cordesman
Anthony H. Cordesmanholds the Arleigh A. Burke Chair in Strategy at the Center for Strategic and International Studiesand is a national security analyst on a number of global conflicts...
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We did not plan three years ago to create more than token Iraqi forces. Now we're at 230,000 roughly and counting. Our whole strategy is dependent on the success of the Iraqi army and the Iraqi police.
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It's an essential part of the broader strategy. But you won't have a situation where Iraqi battalions come on line and U.S. troops leave the next week.
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It's almost a creeping polarization of Iraq along ethnic and sectarian lines, We see a slow, steady loss of confidence, a growing process of distrust.
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The reality is that if the Shi'ites and Kurds can be inclusive and if they can reach a settlement with most of the Iraqi Sunnis, then the efforts of U.S. and coalition forces and the growing Iraqi forces are almost certain to be successful,
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This is the first step to allow Iraq to have a unity government, but it's only a first step. The question is, will the new prime minister be capable of leading the country?
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Iraq might be a far easier opponent than its force strengths indicate. But it also is potentially a very serious military opponent indeed,
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If you pull troops out too quickly now, and you see the situation in Iraq collapse before the midterm elections, the impact is going to be far more serious than if you keep the troops in at reasonable levels.
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If you pull out troops too quickly now, and you see the situation in Iraq collapse before the midterm elections, the impact is going to be far more serious than if you keep the troops in at reasonable levels.
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How much of the battle space can the Iraqi forces take over, and who is actually doing the fighting - those are the key measurements. The measure cannot be the elimination of the insurgency, as desirable as that would be. You cannot eliminate all of the bombings.
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And internally, it again raises the problem that rather than seeing an international force, Iraqis always see U.S. troops. And that raises all kinds of questions about whether the U.S. will leave.
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These are scarcely people you want to integrate into a national force. This would simply create sectarian or ethnic forces or divisions within the forces that already exist.
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And to be perfectly blunt, I think only fools would bet the lives of other men's sons and daughters on their own arrogance and call this force a cakewalk or a speed bump or something that you can dismiss.
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There's so much spin in these numbers. A lot of facts get disguised. . . . Total manpower is meaningless. The army is the key force in direct combat.
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Everything I know about counterterrorism is, you deal with specific cells.