Posted on 04/08/2015 8:35:04 PM PDT by Brad from Tennessee
“My greatest fear,” General Raymond Odierno, the then commanding general of U.S. forces in Iraq, told me in early 2010, “is that we stabilize Iraq, then hand it over to the Iranians in our rush to the exit.”
General O (as he is known), had recently watched the 2007 movie Charlie Wilson’s War, which recounts how U.S. interest in Afghanistan ceased once the mujahedeen defeated the Soviet Army in 1989 and drove them out. Now, he had a premonition that the same could happen in Iraq. “I’ve invested too much here,” he said, “to simply walk away and let that happen.”
had first met Odierno in 2003, when he was the commanding general of the 4th Infantry Division responsible for the provinces of Salah al-Din, Diyala and Kirkuk in the early days of the Iraq War; I had been the representative in Kirkuk of the Coalition Provisional Authority, the American-led transitional government that controlled Iraq after Hussein’s fall. Now, as his political adviser, I was helping General O ensure that the United States kept its focus on the mission in Iraq while drawing down U.S. forces.
Odierno wanted U.S. engagement with Iraq to continue for years to come, but led by U.S. civilians, not the military. He believed that, in order to train Iraqi security forces and provide the psychological support needed to maintain a level of stability, 20,000 or so U.S. troops needed to stay in Iraq beyond 2011, when all American troops were scheduled to be withdrawn. . .
(Excerpt) Read more at politico.com ...
WRONG... Democracy is MOB Rule by mobsters...
Iraq has always had “democracy”...
As have Russia, China, UK, France, Germany.. all of Urp..
AND for a few decades the United States..
Abandoned Iraq or surrendered to Iran?
“I met up with Sami al-Askari, a Shia politician close to Maliki who believed that an agreement between State of Law and Iraqiya was the best way forward. But he also told me that everyone except the Americans realized that the formation of the government was perceived as a battle between Iran and the United States for influence in Iraq. The Iranians were active, while the U.S. embassy did nothing. Qasim Suleimani, the commander of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard’s al-Quds Force, continued to summon Iraqis to Iran in order to put together a pan-Shia coalition. The Iranians, al-Askari said, intended to drag out government formation until after August 31, when all U.S. combat forces were due to leave, in order to score a “victory” over the United States.”
Stinks like a ferret, or a Jarrett.
Bring back the Constitutional Republic..
Does anyone really think that the Iraq fiasco would result in anything but chaos and civil war? Why are conservatives, of all people, so willing to endorse war dreamed up by arrogant politicians and policy wonks? Too bad Wolfowitz and Perle and the rest of the war cheerleaders weren’t the first to be cast into the conflict and maybe sent back 3,4, or 5 times, spending years away from their loved ones. Yeah, war is a racket.
Yea right we brought democracy to Iraq....barf!
Ambassador Christopher Hill should be strung up on corruption, incompetence, and gross negligence charges, as well as his then boss Hillary.
Since taking office Obama has done everything he can to discredit U.S. involvement in Iraq. Retired Marine Corps General Anthony Zinni was promised the ambassadorship in exchange for campaigning for Obama. After the election Zinni found out Hill was getting the job. This has been blamed on Hillary but I believe Obama was pulling the strings. Zinni was highly qualified to help oversee a transition in Iraq. Hill's contempt for Iraqis and Arabs in general bordered on racism. But Hill was the perfect player to sabotage the Washington/Baghdad relationship and the status of forces negotiations. The last thing Obama and Democrats wanted was a relatively peaceful, prosperous Iraq because it would partly justify the war and rehabilitate “W” in history.
It has now become apparent even to the mainstream that Obama’s Middle East policy is based on accommodating Iran who wanted all U.S. forces out of the region.
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