Current Status: U.S. in Iraq

Now that R&R is well behind me and I’m once again settled into what passes for routine here, it seems appropriate to provide an update on what is going on in Iraq. Being as I’m now strapped for topics on a week-to-week basis, I’ll try to milk this for two separate blogs – one about what the United States is doing in Iraq and another about what Iraq is doing in Iraq.

It was very apparent to me while home on R&R that this is not the happening, news-magnet war venue. It was more than a bit strange to read the paper morning after morning and discover that the struggle consuming my days, weeks, and months abroad doesn’t typically rate even a sentence at home. In the big scheme of things, that is probably OK. It suggests that nothing truly horrific is going down, like a scandal involving the Prime Minister and the wife of a close rival. Or an Iraqi soccer star accused of steroid use.

Fortunately, we are spared all of that grief, at least at this point in time. It is the same old, same old. Zombies blowing up innocents, government factions pointing fingers, officials perfecting the art of graft, and, in spite of all of that, economic growth and diplomatic success. What, you are probably not at all wondering, does that mean in terms of U.S. involvement?

It means that the Security Agreement the U.S. and Iraqi government signed in Jan of 2009 will be fulfilled in just a shade over 11 months from now. The military will complete or transfer all tasks currently being undertaken, primarily advising and training Iraq security forces, and vacate the premises not later than 31 December of this year. It should be interesting. While U.S. Forces – Iraq ably demonstrated the ability to rapidly reduce numbers of troops back in August, it also displayed an annoying tendency to not rapidly reduce associated tasks. There are considerable efforts expended here to help the Iraqis in a broad array of security and governance tasks and it will be a challenge to find the right balance between maximum assistance and minimal time to pack and leave.

As Security Agreement compliance progresses, the U.S. and Iraq governments are working on ways and means to execute a different accord, also signed in 2009. The Strategic Framework Agreement spells out a large number of areas where the two countries will continue to cooperate, to include business, energy, water, education, agriculture, and everything else they could think of at the time it was written. The document does not specify that either country do anything at all, just that they agree to work together and do good things in those areas.

The biggest obstacle to these good intentions is the persistent low level of trust the Iraqi people have for the U.S. or any other foreign influence. They mostly just want us gone, which we are busily planning to do. If pressed, they would agree it would be nice if some quality of life improvements could occur as the result of continued cooperation, but it seems both sides are not yet sure how to manage the contradictions. Some balance will eventually be reached that will keep the diplomats engaged enough with the Iraq government to allow U.S. engagement to advance civil capacity.

That, in a nutshell, is where we stand right now. The U.S. military is pushing hard to bring the Iraq security forces to the highest possible levels of competence over the next ten months, after which the physics of logistics takes over and sufficient work must be applied to move the considerable mass of USF-I the 7,000 or so miles home. That, thankfully, will not be my tale to tell.