We don't need to stay there longer than necessary. And we can't afford it. The longer we stay the more the Iraqi army and police force will become dependent on us and open for corruption from terrorists.
Not there to do the Iraqi armies job, there to have access to the rest of the region. Need the money? close bases in other parts of the world. Like Germany. We are going to spend the money, regardless. I believe we should get some results from our tax dollars.
What in the name of God is his staff doing? How could these comments been allowed to emerge? The President said weeks ago that the Iraqi government has ALREADY asked for a long term presence like that in Korea or Germany. How can his staff not have briefed this?
They aren’t dependent. They are being embedded to be trained:
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1873827/posts?page=17#17
Excerpt:
We are standing up Iraqi military. So the question is how long. The Iraqi Army consists of 129 battalions. We need to make sure that every one of those battalions of the Iraqi Army gets a 3 or 4 month combat tour in Anbar Province, Baghdad or Sunni Triangle. A top area where they have to exercise their change of command, their discipline, their leadership and prove themselves. When they are battle hardened, we need to rotate them into the battlefield and then rotate out American heavy combat forces. That is the right way to hand off the security burden to the Iraqi Army. And here is my difference with a lot of folks that have called in. I think the Iraqi government which was freely elected will hold. I think if you have an election tomorrow, you will have the same incumbents. And I think the Iraqi Army will hold. So I think we will ultimately be successful in Iraq. That will mean having a country in that strategic location which will not be a state sponsor of terrorism for the next 5 to 10 to 20 years and will be a friend to the United States will be a good thing for American Foreign Policty.
Laura Knoy: Congressman, you said the Iraqi battalions have to prove themselves, they have to be ready. Yet you hear form the public we have been hearing that for a long time. How long do we wait for these Iraqi units will be ready? Some democrats say as long as we are there, we are holding their hands.
Duncan Hunter: Well here is the deal. It is kinda like teaching someone to ride a bicycle. The question is when do you let go of the bicycle. The Iraqi battalions that are in Baghdad right now which is a major operation we have got 10 Iraqi brigades there we have roughly 30 to 40 battalions that are rotating in and out the additional 3 brigades were sent in there. A lot of the Iraqi battalions now have seen a lot of combat. Some have become very proficient. Some from the quieter areas, haven’t seen much. And my urging is to get them all a battlefield tour of at least 3 to 4 months. And when they have that and we rotate them into the battlefield and the American heavy units can come out and can be moved to other places in central command or come back to the United States.
The point is this shouldn’t not be a function of a political decision that everybody leave now. And I know it is tough. I know a lot of people say we should have keep Saddam Hussein’s Army in place. Saddam Hussein’s Army had 1100 Sunni Generals. It would have been a big mess right now. We had to build this army from scratch. Building an army from scratch aint easy.