Source: Vast Left
As I’ve said previously, I don’t think we can give Obama much more credit about the forthcoming withdrawal from Iraq other than it will occur while he’s in office. As things stand now, nothing is different than the plan that was already laid out in George W. Bush’s agreement with the new Iraqi government.
Could it be that rather than Obama fulfilling one of his major campaign promises, much later than expected, he was backed into a corner?
But talks ran aground over Iraqi opposition to giving American troops legal immunity that would shield them from Iraqi prosecution. Legal protection for U.S. troops has always angered everyday Iraqis who saw it as simply a way for the Americans to run roughshod over the country. Many Iraqi lawmakers were hesitant to grant immunity for fear of a backlash from constituents.
“When the Americans asked for immunity, the Iraqi side answered that it was not possible,” al-Maliki told a news conference Saturday. “The discussions over the number of trainers and the place of training stopped. Now that the issue of immunity was decided and that no immunity to be given, the withdrawal has started.”
So, are we leaving because Obama thought it was the right thing to do or because the Iraqis made clear they didn’t want to be occupied anymore? It’s looking like the latter. Just last month Defense Secretary Leon E. Panetta wanted to continue the occupation:
Defense Secretary Leon E. Panetta is supporting a plan that would keep 3,000 to 4,000 American troops in Iraq after a deadline for their withdrawal at year’s end, but only to continue training security forces there, a senior military official said on Tuesday.
The same NY Times article paints a different view from the State Department:
The State Department’s spokeswoman, Victoria Nuland, reiterated the administration’s pledge to go to zero by the end of the year.
“I think our public position, our private position, hasn’t changed, that our plan is to withdraw by the end of the year,” she said on Tuesday when asked about reported comments by the Kurdish regional leader, Massoud Barzani, that he favored an American presence beyond 2011. “Were the Iraqi government to come forward and make a request for some continued security assistance, we would be prepared to look at it.”
To sum up, the corporate media has painted Obama’s announcement to follow the Bush plan as some sort of unforeseen development and has spun the withdrawal as Obama keeping a campaign promise. When you look deeper, it appears that the decision to leave was made recently and only after the Iraqis pulled immunity for US troops, essentially forcing Obama’s hand.
And to say we’re entirely leaving is misleading. We still have the world’s largest embassy in Iraq and we’re still maintaining a presence with hired mercenaries:
The State Department is expected to have about 5,000 security contractors in Iraq as of January 2012 (they already have about 3,000 in country).
Additionally they will have 4,500 so-called “general life support” contractors, who provide food and medical services, operate the aviation assets, etc.
So, while I’m still filing this story under good news, I can’t give Obama a lot of credit for doing the right thing or even what he promised.
What’s even uglier than Obama dragging his feet in Iraq until the locals forced us to withdraw is the response from the Republicans:
Mitt Romney’s campaign sent out an email statement … “President Obama’s astonishing failure to secure an orderly transition in Iraq has unnecessarily put at risk the victories that were won through the blood and sacrifice of thousands of American men and women,” the candidate stated. “The unavoidable question is whether this decision is the result of a naked political calculation or simply sheer ineptitude in negotiations with the Iraqi government.”
Was Obama’s withdrawal a political calculation? Yes. Did he not get the result he wanted from the Iraqi government? Yes. Did he put victories at risk? OK, this is where the crazy kicks in. What exactly are the victories Romney and others are talking about?
Iraq had no weapons of mass destruction, they where not a threat to the United States, and they had no involvement in the 9/11 attacks. What victories did we secure by invading a nation that did not attack us? Is Romney talking about securing oil contracts for favored multi-national corporations? Or perhaps all the money that was funneled to private corporations or simply lost? Maybe the victory is strictly a numbers game. We’ve killed a lot of people.
So here we are, eight years after Bush lied us into a war against a nation that never attacked us. No one has been held accountable. No one’s been prosecuted for war crimes. Our presidents still go to war illegally.
I’m not going to break my arm patting President Obama on the back, but I am glad our soldiers are coming home.
