How to Leave Iraq

Speaking of the weird Iraq debate inside the Democratic primary, one notable characteristic has been a tendency by some of the candidates to plead logistical incapacity to leave quickly. As Lawrence J. Korb, Max Bergmann, Sean Duggan, and Peter Juul argue in a Center for American Progress report, this is basically BS: "It is certainly possible to conduct a rapid withdrawal of U.S. forces, in perhaps as short a time as three months if the U.S. military (in the words of Iraq war veteran and military analyst Phillip Carter) were to effectively conduct an 'invasion in reverse.'" That said, I also tend to agree with them that a somewhat more measured pace of redeployment would be wiser, if only because it can be conducted in a more orderly manner:

Deciding between a swift or extended redeployment, however, is a false dilemma. While both options are logistically feasible, this report will demonstrate that an orderly and safe withdrawal is best achieved over a 10- to 12-month period. Written in consultation with military planners and logistics experts, this report is not intended to serve as a playbook for our military planners but rather as a guide to policymakers and the general public about what is realistically achievable. A massive, yet safe and orderly redeployment of U.S. forces, equipment, and support personnel is surely daunting—but it is well within the exceptional logistical capabilities of the U.S. military.

The full report is here in PDF and here's an MP3 of a conference call on the report.

Comments

Maybe Gates has insisted on plan for withdrawal. Maybe not So in Feb of 08 a Democratic president can go to the Pentagon and ask to see the plans Maybe there won't be one, so we have to wait a few months. Then they will see the plan Then we can assume they will be paralyzed. Now it's 2009.

Of course a plan today might be rendered obsolete in 16 months, like say we are in a hot war with Iran. In fact the Iran war will make any plan for withdrawal just not obsolete but impossible. Which is a big plus on the side of an attack on the board in the White House.

Since war is so unpredictable it's a far to easy an assumption that a slow exit would be more orderly. Such an exit would leave larger amounts of troops in harms way without adequate support for longer periods of time, Maybe they won't need it, maybe they will.

Posted by rapier | September 4, 2007 2:59 PM

Maybe Gates has insisted on plan for withdrawal. Maybe not So in Feb of 08 a Democratic president can go to the Pentagon and ask to see the plans

That's exactly why Hillary tried to force the issue a couple months back. You'll recall that some flunky told her she was hurting America by questioning the war policy, or words to that effect.

Posted by Steve | September 4, 2007 3:05 PM

Somehow I doubt we'll save more troops through the orderliness of the withdrawal than we'll lose to the normal attrition as we wait to withdraw (with order). Admittedly I have no cred on the issue, I was against invading in the first place.

Posted by aleks | September 4, 2007 3:08 PM

Phil Carter is a military analyst now? I thought he was a 20-something year old Los Angeles lawyer and junior officer in the Army Reserve who served a year in Iraq as an adviser to the Iraqi police or something.

Posted by Juan | September 4, 2007 3:14 PM

Maybe Gates has insisted on plan for withdrawal. Maybe not So in Feb of 08 a Democratic president can go to the Pentagon and ask to see the plans

Ah, a dreamer. I don't think we'll be able to impeach both bastiges that fast.

Posted by Jeffrey Davis | September 4, 2007 3:58 PM

While both options are logistically feasible, this report will demonstrate that an orderly and safe withdrawal is best achieved over a 10- to 12-month period.

This is one of the foulest crocks that has yet been handed to us from D.C., and the left is buying into it. While an "orderly" withdrawal surely can't be done in a few days, on the Dunkirk model, modern history is replete with examples of rapid redeployment of massive forces using far more primitive transport than the Pentagon now has at its disposal. The German invasion of the Soviet Union in 1941 was conducted quickly and on an enormous scale, as was Patton's advance into Czechoslovakia four years later.

Is it really necessary to remove every last shipping crate from Iraq? The "orderly redeployment" scam is just a way of prolonging the occupation and "surge" in the hope of salvaging U.S. hegemony in Iraq.

Posted by Geaghan | September 4, 2007 4:07 PM

I'd like to preface this comment with a "WTFDIK?", but it does seem that the majority of the violence against U.S. personnel comes in the form of IEDs and ambushes by relatively small bands of people. I suppose those efforts could be focused on bases or points of departure in the event of a sudden redeployment, but it’s not like the Army and Marines have to worry about being hit by some organized army as they try to flee through some mountain pass or anything like that. Bush is simply draping his utterly self-interested “no surrender” stubbornness in the vague presumptions that most of us civilians have when we imagine moving 150,000 troops out of a dangerous country. As many have pointed out, there’s little reason to think that staying in Iraq is safer for anyone (or more productive) than getting out today.
Bush refuses to be the guy who is associated with getting out, and that’s all there is to it. I wonder sometimes if he is so stubborn about this not because he really believes anything in particular about what’s right for Iraq or the U.S. but because remaining “steadfast” relieves him of the difficult task of having to actually think. Why listen to a hundred proposals on what to do to clean up the unprecedented mess you’ve made when you can just play tough guy, state “We’re staying the course”, and go back to watching TV?

Posted by tinisoli | September 4, 2007 4:39 PM

Maybe not So in Feb of 08 a Democratic president can go to the Pentagon and ask to see the plans Maybe there won't be one, so we have to wait a few months. Then they will see the plan Then we can assume they will be paralyzed. Now it's 2009.

The election is in November '08; the next president takes office in Jan. '09.

Posted by rea | September 4, 2007 5:43 PM

The military should definitely have the capability of moving forces quickly into or out of the field - certainly that would be the case if we were facing an enemy capable of winning head to head engagements in battle.

If our forces literally couldn't rapidly redeploy we'd have a bigger problem than just troop burnout.

Posted by Jinchi | September 4, 2007 6:30 PM

The point of that study is that the US CAN withdraw and do so in a manner that will minimize casualties and loss of equipment IF it is done NOW.

If we wait until things are worse - "Cheer up, things could be worse! So I cheered up and sure enough, things got worse!" - it will require us to withdraw under (more) fire than we're already taking AND leave behind a lot of expensive hardware that somebody else will end up using to kill a lot of people (maybe including us at some point.)

I cited this study a few days ago when I saw it. Matt's just catching up.

The other point of this study is that it will NOT take two or three years to withdraw as a lot of idiots who ARE trying to extend the war claim.

Posted by Richard Steven Hack | September 4, 2007 10:19 PM

How the US Army can leave Iraq quickly:

1) Gather up the soldiers.
2) Gather up the materiel.
3) March into Iran.

As long as Dick and Dubya are in charge, that's the only way it will happen.

-- TP

Posted by Tony P. | September 5, 2007 12:06 AM

I'm too lazy to go dig up all the old Cheney and Rumsfeld quotes from the "Mission Accomplished" era, but I generally recall Rumsfeld -- in April or early May of 2003 -- talking about a significant drawdown in forces by September. Weeks or months and not years, and all that.

I recall the only explanation at the time for the delay was essentially to perform mop-up duties. Oh, and that pesky WMD search.

Regardless, I don't recall any talk about withdrawal in less than a year being logistically impossible.

If you want an honest evaluation of how long a withdrawal should take, I'd go back to 2003 and see what the Pentagon was saying then.

Posted by space | September 5, 2007 12:10 PM