U.S. Commander in Iraq Says Yearlong Tours Are Option to Combat 'Guerrilla' War (NY Times, July 17, 2003, registration required) American troops in Iraq are under attack from "a classical guerrilla-type campaign" whose fighters, drawn from Saddam Hussein's most unyielding loyalists and foreign terrorist groups, are increasingly organized, the new commander of allied forces in Iraq said today. The commander, Gen. John P. Abizaid, pledged that the United States and its allies would not be driven from Iraq by the guerrilla attacks, which today killed one American soldier and wounded at least six others around Baghdad. But he cautioned that pacifying Iraq might require fresh American troops to spend yearlong tours there, double the normal duration of Army forces on peacekeeping duty.
Well, that ought to do wonders for the morale of the troops in Iraq. They already feel that they've been lied to; they've been told three times that they were going home only to have the date changed. Now they're going to hear that they've got to stay there up to another nine months. On top of that, they're in a situation that they weren't trained for, in a place where the people hate them. (Although, in one of the classic Catch-22 situations that the military specializes in, the longer they're in place, doing peacekeeping work, the better trained they will be for peacekeeping work. In the meantime, soldiers sent to replace them will need to start from scratch, since the US notably does not train well for this sort of thing, so the simple fact that they've been doing the work for so long may wind up mitigating against sending the troops back anytime soon.) They went in not trusting the military to equip them properly. (And were apparently correct in that mistrust, which is appalling.)
The Pentagon had wanted to replace some of the troops with allied forces, but unsurprisingly, the allies are taking a good hard look at the situation and realizing that it would be foolhardy to send their people into that situation. (With the exception of Turkey, whose offer is ... puzzling, to put it mildly. After all, their interests lie in northern Iraq, not southern. One wonders why, after having been rather insistent about sending troops to the north, Turkey has made this offer.) The administration, in turn, is not particularly enamored of the concept of paying all of the costs but having none of the authority -- if you're going to make a deal that bad, you might as well stick with the status quo.
Posted by iain at July 17, 2003 11:18 AMComments
