Exit Strategy

I have to hurry up and post this before President Obama returns from vacation and makes his big Iraq speech. It will make me look like either a prophet or an idiot. Since the pay is the same regardless, I guess it doesn't really matter.

Many of you may have read or watched news stories surrounding the departure from Iraq of the 4th Stryker Brigade Combat Team on the 19th of August. The event was typically billed as the departure of the last U.S. combat brigade from Iraq, which is not exactly true, and sometimes heralded as the end of the war for the U.S., which is not remotely true.

So, you may be asking yourself, what exactly does it mean? Glad you asked.

I'll start by rolling back the clock to January 2009, at which time the United States and Iraq signed an agreement establishing how the U.S. would remove troop presence from Iraq cities by July 2009 and eventually the entire country not later than December 2011. This is referred to as the Security Agreement, fondly known around here as the SA, and it has absolutely nothing to do with what happened on 19 Aug.

What happened on 19 August was the result of a political mandate of the current administration that said, enroute to the removal of all U.S. forces by the end of 2011, we will end the U.S. combat mission and reduce troop levels to not more than 50,000 by 1 September 2010. On that date, Operation Iraqi Freedom ends and Operation New Dawn begins. Those operational units remaining in Iraq as part of the 50,000 are re-designated from Combat Brigade Teams to Advise and Assist Brigades with a mission change commensurate with the name change.

Beginning on the 1st of September, these units will no longer conduct partnered operations with Iraq Security Forces as they continue to battle a persistent level of violent extremist attacks. Some U.S. troops may accompany their Iraqi counterparts on these missions as advisors, but the door-kicking and trigger-pulling is wholly relegated to the Iraqi forces.

The primary function of the remaining brigades is to continue work on improving the individual and collective skills of Iraq security forces in order to enhance their capabilities and professionalism. The U.S. brigades are also part of the larger U.S. effort of working with the government of Iraq to continue enhancing civil capacity and economic opportunity across the country.

All of that said, these U.S. units are still fully manned and fully equipped combat units that will take whatever measures necessary to protect themselves. They will still be targeted by violent extremists and there will continue to be casualties right up to the point all are gone in December 2011.

So, in the end, you might still ask what exactly it means. Militarily, a case could easily be made that the war is won. Regime change happened, new government elected (we'll skip the part about how dorked-up that is), and Iraq security forces are large and in charge. Exit US military. It was a long and bitterly painful road, but the destination is reached.

From the larger perspective of U.S. involvement in diplomatic and inter-governmental activities leading to full Iraqi sovereignty and stability, history will judge. There are a ton of problems and none made easier by the nature of Middle East ways and means. If the will of the people prevails, all will be well. If it's business as usual for the Iraqi leadership, Lord help them all.

Grumblings

Today marks the halfway point to my planned Rest and Relaxation (R&R) point of 20 December. That plan has me home for Christmas and headed back to the Big Sandbox on 3 Jan. Allow three days for travel on either end of those dates.

It remains difficult to see that far forward. A lot of the problem I attribute to the heat. I know I've been whining about it since early June, but it is beginning to suck the life right out of folks here. It is sort of the opposite of the problem folks in Alaska have, where it is cold and dark for months on end. Here it is hot and bright for months on end. I checked a number of websites to see what the average temperatures were supposed to be in Baghdad, and none of the four or five I looked at made any sense.

I'll pick one: Washington Post weather bubbas say average high temperature for August is 108. I'm telling you we can hardly wait for the day when 108 is the high. They say average low temperature for August is 75. I'm pretty sure the needle hasn't seen 75 since sometime in May. It hasn't dropped below 90 since sometime in June. But it's a dry heat! Last rainfall was at the very beginning of May. Next rainfall won't be until sometime in October. I'm certain this whole place would be better off if all 26 million or so of them just packed up and moved somewhere else.

The way government formation is going here, many of them probably feel like packing up and moving somewhere else. It is more than five full months since the elections and the winning parties have still not managed to figure out who will run what, thus no new government is yet formed. The problem remains the arrogance of two leaders, the two men whose lists (parties) finished the elections in a near tie. One is a former Prime Minister, the other the most recent Prime Minister. The system has been so manipulated that nobody can figure out how to get rid of the current guy, even though his list finished second in the voting.

The people deserve much better than this. They've been through the crucible, a particularly nasty sectarian civil war from 2005-2008 that none care to return to. At its height, from the summer of 2006 to the summer of 2007, an average of approximately 1,600 Iraqis were killed or wounded every week. Nobody is particularly excited about the prospect of seeing that again in their lifetime.

Yet they suffer nonetheless. They wanted, even voted for, an inclusive and representative government and it has so far been denied them. They had huge hopes that a national effort would be made to improve basic services and provide jobs, and none of that is happening.

In my admittedly biased opinion, Iraq has been handed a great gift: the opportunity to live freely and reclaim some of the glory that is their heritage. And they are squandering it. The greed and ambition of a few paralyzing the movement of millions, relegating hope to something as distant and tangible as a desert mirage in the relentless summer sun.

Summertime Blues

We approach mid-month August, mere weeks away from the Big Change for US Forces - Iraq. I get a new boss. My new boss gets a new boss. All of us get a new mission. New Dawn.

Who knows, maybe it gets me some extra bling -- another ribbon in addition to Operation Iraqi Freedom. Or not, no telling at this stage of the game.

Anyway, here's yet another picture of me trying to have fun without alcohol. We're getting it down to a science -- fire up the grill at 1800, ice down the alcohol-free Becks or St. Pauli Girl or Lowenbrau, bring fruit/fries/onion rings/salads from the dining facility and start burning meat. The best part is spending four hours purely BSing instead of grinding it out at the cubicle farm.

This would be a great place for Scott Adams (Dilbert) to come for new material. I thought my team had an off-week in terms of needing to provide an update to the commanding general, since we normally work from a schedule and begin assembling analysis almost two weeks out. On Saturday I'm told to brief Thursday and, oh, by the way, part of it needs to be something new and different and painful to figure out.

So we commence to apply our considerable Excel and Powerpoint skills to create multiple charts with circles and arrows and paragraphs down below explaining what all the numbers and colors and acronyms are supposed to be descriptive of. And we scour countless media stories to see who wrote what and when and what did they say and why what they said differs fom outlet to outlet because every media outlet has a unique bias. And we, in time, make some sense of this and complete the brief with a few hours to spare.

Thirty minutes prior to the brief, my boss calls me to let me know that maybe I should explain my slides carefully, since the portions of the brief in front of me turned out to be a little thin in terms of content. Meaning I had 1/2 the slides in the whole thing. So I did, and all went well and I left there thinking we would catch a break for the next week, since I was not scheduled for anything then either.

No sooner did I sit down back at my desk than I get the word: CG liked it, need even more for next week -- something that captures all of the change in Iraq over the last couple of years. Maybe twice as long a brief as this week! So, if you read this T. Ryan, the work adage remains: the more you do, the more you do.

New Dawn. I'm ready for it. Hope it Dawns cool. I think I mentioned once or twice that it is hot over here.

Goodbye, LTC Klingaman

In keeping with my sad tradition, it is time again to note the departure of a valued comrade. Randy is now back in the land of beer and Harley's, having some quality time with his wife, son and daughter.

Given the relative newness of the rest of the Assessments team, Randy was clearly The Oracle, the man with the inside knowledge, the contacts, the proven methodologies, the Plan, the whole Been There, Done That view of our world. We have much catching up to do in his absence.

He's clearly in a better place with his family, but it remains to be seen how he'll fare when he reports to a couple of shady boondoggling buddies of mine in Chrystal City. He will, at a minimum, add a touch of class to the joint.

Thanks, Randy, for all you've done for USF-I and our cause in Iraq.

What else might be new or even remotely newsworthy around here? Not much, it turns out.

I am about to begin some redecorating in my humble abode, thanks to the timely arrival of some colorful accessories provided by my sisters in response to my whining about the whole drabness of the place. I now have flower and Tiki garlands and streamers and tablecloths, pink flamingoes, brightly colored kazoos, a batch of Hawaiian print shirts, a rainbow array of plastic Tiki cups, and other stuff I haven't yet pulled out of the boxes. No mere CHU for me anymore. It's Copa CHUbana now, my own little tropical retreat, a little slice of paradise tucked in this small corner of hell.

The only other thing worth complaining about is the dreaded "duck and cover" alarms they use here to warn us residents that something bad is inbound. Or not. Or is already here. July was a regular riot of rockets, but too frequently the alarm was after the boom -- sometimes a minute or more! Whatever the device is that is supposed to track these things was apparently set to pick up nothing smaller than a Saturn V. Unnacceptable!

So they tweaked it. Now, there is not a rocket to be seen or heard and the damn thing goes off four times a day. At least one of these times will be between the hours of 0200 and 0400. And at least one will be while you are walking to another building in the middle of the day and have to run into a concrete shelter, which is not unlike a fired-up kiln as you wait it out in the 120 degree heat.

I hope they find the sweet spot soon.