Update [2005-7-5 9:27:34 by susanhu]: Juan Cole gets an earful from a British reservist on conditions in Southern Iraq.
“MoD [Ministry of Defence] plans Iraq troop withdrawal,” headlines the FInancial Times (via Raw Story).
In what would represent the biggest operational shake-up involving the armed forces since the Iraq war, the first stage of a run-down in military operations is likely to take place this autumn with a handover of security to Iraqis in at least two southern provinces. More:
On May 22, I wrote a story, “Secret UK Troops Plan for Afghan Crisis,” based on a Scotsman report that states, “As the bloody imbroglio of Iraq has preoccupied the world’s headlines” — reports Sunday’s Scotsman — Afghanistan is tearing at the seams, “to the extent that some officials in Washington and London are beginning to warn of a descent into bloodshed that would rival the brutality of Baghdad.”
The May 22 story said that “UK military planners and analysts warn that 5,500 extra UK troops may be needed. Meanwhile, the U.S. is blaming President Hamid Karzai’s failure of leadership for controlling poppy production at the same time its troops are courting drug lords.”
More from today’s Financial Times story:
Any reduction of UK troops could be timed to coincide with plans being developed to deploy a total of up to 3,000 troops to Afghanistan before the end of next year. This deployment would take the lead in a Nato force to take over from US troops in the south of Afghanistan.
In that role, the UK forces would help fight insurgents and provide support for the war on narcotics in the region.
While the MoD insisted that no decision had been made on Afghan or Iraqi deployments, John Reid, defence secretary, said yesterday that Iraqi forces could begin to take charge of security in their country within a year.
In an interview with the BBC Radio 4 Today programme, Mr Reid suggested that plans were consistent with the recent prediction of Donald Rumsfeld, US defence secretary, that it could take take up to 12 years to defeat the Iraqi insurgency.
He told the BBC that while the insurgency in Iraq may go on for “some considerable time”, there remained a second question.
“Who will lead the security efforts against the insurgency? And I think in a relatively short period of time we can start the process of that being led by the Iraqi security forces themselves,” he said.
Mr Reid went on: “So although Donald Rumsfeld may have said, correctly, that this may take years before it is finally completed, that did not imply that all that period will have to be led by the multi-national forces or the British forces.
“I personally think that within a year we could begin that transition to the Iraqi forces leading the effort themselves.”
[…..]
By next April, a best case scenario would see current troops levels of 8,500 reduced to about 4,000-5,000, with a further cut in the period leading to the first quarter of 2007, when the British military presence is expected to fall to about 1,000 advisers and training personnel.
As bad as Iraq is going on the American end of things, the state of affairs in Afghanistan is close to disastrous.
Note that the British troops are not being brought home, but rather redeployed to the Afghanistan theatre. This is part of a redeployment that has already been under way for some months now.
Most of the public–and I include the people reading these words in that statement–don’t realise that Afghanistan is a far more deadly conflict than Iraq. The Taliban were not defeated because Bush, against Blair’s advice and that of his own commanders, shifted from Afghanistan to Iraq.
Bush let Osama bin Laden escape. Bush let most of the Taliban leadership slip into the rugged mountains and hills of southern Afghanistan.
The real scandal here is not the relative media silence on Iraq–in fact, there has been enough coverage of it so that a majority of even the normally belligerent American public have turned against the American occupation of Iraq–but rather the silence regarding Afghanistan.
Afghanistan, to put it mildly, is in chaos. Hamad Karzai, like Soviet puppets before him, is the Mayor of Kabul (actually parts of Kabul) and nothing else. The overstretched and outmatched coalition forces (Americans, Brits, Canadians, and other Europeans) are battling desperately against Taliban-led guerrillas whose swords were forged in the long fight against the Soviet occupation.
The American-led alliance is in real danger of being defeated on the battlefield in Afghanistan–yet there are no American combat troops to be sent to Afghanistan, and so British troops must go. Bush has burnt his bridges with other allies, so he cannot call on them as an American president normally would.
The Americans are NOT in danger of being defeated on the battlefield in Iraq–the Americans, so long as they are willing to sustain a few hundred combat deaths a year, can remain in Iraq indefinitely.
The US Army, due to ongoing reorganisation in its brigades, is increasing the availability of combat troops within each brigade of 3,000 to 4,000 soldiers. These clever reorganisations will restructure brigades so that each one has more combat troops and fewer support-and-service personnel. This process has been going on for a couple of years now. Once the process is complete, the Army will have 43 or possibly 48 combat brigades (in 2000, it had 33)–each brigade smaller but loaded with 20 percent to 30 percent more fighting power.
With this reorganisation, the Army will be able to maintain its current level of troops in Iraq without having to rely so heavily on the Guard and Reserve. The last time U.S. troops rotated into Iraq, they consisted of 10 brigades from the active Army and seven brigades from the reserves. The next rotation, later this year, will consist of 15 active brigades and just two from the reserves.
(By the way–British soldiers are not “Tony’s troops”; they serve the people of the United Kingdom. Technically they are Her Majesty’s troops, but as an anti-monarchist that phrase sticks in my throat.)
Do you think we will only suffer a few hundred deaths a year? We lost 80 people last month. The bases need logistical support and it is still way too dangerous to transfer supplies to the bases. Last year, 43% of the troops were made up of National Guard and the Reserves. That is WAY too high.
Do you know what percentage of the troops are National Guard and Reserves are in Iraq now? I know they may have gotten some of the their regular troops from Germany because we had some base closings over the last year or two but where are the rest of them coming from? We are certainly way behind on the recruiting.
this. While this is a major political statement showing that it is time to leave Iraq. I fear that Bush will maintain his “We must stay the course” strategy in which many of the men and woman serving in the American Reserves and National Guard will have to stay even longer or serve a 4th or 5th tour. This is just way too much hardship for them. I have a 40 year old friend in the reserves with two small children and a mortage to boot. His 7 year contract expired last year but he was forced to sign a new contract or go straight to Iraq. He does not want to go and was against this war to begin with. This is just so nerve racking for all of us.