The U.S. Military Exits Iraq, Leaving Behind a Nation in Peril

An Iraqi demand that tens of thousands of militants turn in their weapons falls short in a conflict fed by America’s war with Iran

BAGHDAD—After spending more than 23 years and $1.7 trillion, America is winding down what critics have called its forever war in Iraq, closing the last major U.S. military base on Wednesday.

“We don’t think we need the military there anymore,” President Trump said during a White House visit by Iraqi Prime Minister Ali al-Zaidi in July. “We have a fantastic champion, a new champion,” the president said. “He’s young, and he’s handsome.”

Zaidi, a 41-year-old businessman, sat beside Trump during the visit and announced a deadline, also set for Wednesday, for Iranian-backed militias to hand over their weapons. “There is no justification for their existence after the 30th of September,” he said.

Instead, America’s open-ended war with Iran is pushing Iraq deeper into conflict, with the U.S. exit leaving behind a country where well-armed militias are only tightening their grip. Militants and Iranian forces launched more than 600 attacks on U.S. diplomatic and military facilities in Iraq in the first two months of the war, The Wall Street Journal reported.

In a sign of Iraq’s instability, the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad now sends frequent security warnings to individual Americans and others. About two a week regard kidnapping by militants. A team from the Journal abruptly left Baghdad this month after Iraqi, U.S. and European officials warned of a security threat that American officials later said was a kidnapping risk by a Shiite militia.

Iran-backed militias have long exercised influence in Iraq. But...

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My memory is that they captured a plant producing nerve agent, whose plant manager was an Iraqi army General. The plant had not been previously disclosed to UN inspectors. Then three or four days later the news told us that whoops, turns out it was agricultural pesticide. Several times after that they found stockpiles of the stuff in army munitions storage and each time, after a day or two, they would come back and announce that, no, again, it’s agricultural pesticide.

So I always wondered who had the power to make WMD disappear just by redefining it, at a time when Bush’s presidency hung in the balance, and he desperately needed confirmation of Saddam’s WMDs.

The permanent stationing of a Heavy Brigade would be a challenge. The port (and Iraq only has one that can be charitably described as modern) would need upgrades in security and infrastructure, the Lines of Communication (LOC’s) would need built and secured.

The Brigade would require a huge terrain footprint (if you consolidate at one location): expensive and a big target, or disburse the sub-units on smaller bases spread out: more expensive and lots of smaller targets. The Brigade would have to defend those bases and/or conduct security operations “outside the wire”. It can be ordered to do both, but will likely fail at one which will leave significant vulnerability at the other.

A model for this type of operation might be the planned stationing of a Brigade+ in Poland. Expensive (though the Poles are paying quite a bit) time consuming, and personnel heavy, and this is in a “permissive” environment. If we have to do it in Iraq now, we will have to defend every pier, highway/airfield and base from zombies who hate us and see us as “puppets of the Jews”. If we had to move the Brigade somewhere else, we’d likely have to fight our way out, and be back filled by another Brigade, or watch our base be overrun and looted. (see “withdrawal from Afghanistan”). This is just a SWAG, your mileage may vary... Cheers!

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