400 days and out

July 18, 2005 9:12 AM

"400 Days and Out: A Strategy for Resolving the Iraq Impasse" is a proposal for US troop withdrawal by Carl Conetta of the Project on Defense Alternatives think-tank. "The key to enabling total US troop withdrawal from Iraq within 400 days is achieving a political accord with Sunni leaders at all levels and with Iraq's neighbors - especially Syria and Iran. The proximal aim would be to immediately lower the level of conflict inside Iraq by constricting both active and passive support for the insurgency, inside and outside the country." It follows up on another briefing authored by Conetta in May entitled "Vicious Circle" discussed previously.
posted by jenleigh (26 comments total)

Political accord between Iraq, Syria and Iran?

Hmmm, why does it seem like I've seen this plot before?

When the President of Iraq is assassinated by a member of his own security detail, the leader of neighboring Iran takes advantage of the resulting power vacuum and consolidates the two nations into one called the United Islamic Republic. With assistance from India and the People's Republic of China, the UIR forms a plan to conquer the oil and religious wealth of Saudi Arabia and transform itself into a superpower. Following a series of terrorist attacks designed to cripple the United States, including a biowarfare attack using the Ebola virus, the UIR goes to war against the Saudi and Kuwaiti forces and the few uninfected American units rushed to the region to stand by them.
posted by three blind mice at 9:36 AM on July 18, 2005

Interesting, going to read the paper later on today. I have read the bibliography [pdf] and it is a good resource. Thanks!
posted by mlis at 9:36 AM on July 18, 2005

400 days, lets see. That would put the date some 2 months ahead of the november elections.
posted by H. Roark at 10:09 AM on July 18, 2005

This is a fantasy solution to an increasingly complicated problem.

"The proximal aim would be to immediately lower the level of conflict inside Iraq by constricting both active and passive support for the insurgency"

And the current aim is to do the same thing, except by use of crushing force. And yeah, I know, that really isn't working either.
posted by j.p. Hung at 10:10 AM on July 18, 2005

Other reasons for the impending withdrawal include:

We're running out of troops we can deploy

Reserve and National Guard members from all of the armed services make up about 35 percent of the troops in Iraq, a share that is expected to drop to about 30 percent by next year; the vast majority are from the Army Reserve and Army National Guard.

But as these returning troops settle back into their civilian lives, the Army is running perilously low on its Reserve and National Guard soldiers who largely fill certain critical support jobs, like military police and civil affairs officers and truck drivers...

"By next fall, we'll have expended our ability to use National Guard brigades as one of the principal forces," said Gen. Barry McCaffrey, a retired four-star Army commander who was dispatched to Iraq last month to assess the operation. "We're reaching the bottom of the barrel."

Part-Time Forces on Active Duty Decline Steeply

The war is destroying the army

The increase in the divorce rate is similarly steep Army-wide, with the number of ended marriages rising 86% from 2000 to 2004. That figure includes widows and some breakups counted twice, when soldiers divorce other soldiers. Even so, Army chaplains said the conflicts in Afghanistan and Iraq had taken a severe toll on military marriages.

Shrapnel From Home

We can't afford it

The wars in Iraq and Afghanistan have already cost taxpayers $314 billion, and the Congressional Budget Office projects additional expenses of perhaps $450 billion over the next 10 years...

"Osama (bin Laden) doesn't have to win; he will just bleed us to death," said Michael Scheuer, a former counterterrorism official at the CIA who led the pursuit of bin Laden and recently retired after writing two books critical of the Clinton and Bush administrations. "He's well on his way to doing it."

The Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments, a nonpartisan Washington think tank, has estimated that the Korean War cost about $430 billion and the Vietnam War cost about $600 billion, in current dollars. According to the latest estimates, the cost of the war in Iraq could exceed $700 billion.

Casualty of war: the U.S. economy

We couldn't even fix the 'elections'

...“Did we have eleven hundred Americans die”—the number of U.S. combat deaths as of last September—“so they could have a rigged election?”

Sometime after last November’s Presidential election, I was told by past and present intelligence and military officials, the Bush Administration decided to override Pelosi’s objections and covertly intervene in the Iraqi election. A former national-security official told me that he had learned of the effort from “people who worked the beat”—those involved in the operation. It was necessary, he added, “because they couldn’t afford to have a disaster.”

Did Washington try to manipulate Iraq’s election?

We can't win anyway you cut it...

The insurgency cannot be overcome easily by either United States military forces or immature Iraqi security forces. Nor would the situation be eased even if, improbably, the United Nations, NATO, our European allies and Japan choose to become seriously involved.

Our best strategy now is a prompt withdrawal plan consisting of clearly defined political, military and economic elements...

Time to Pull Out. And Not Just From Iraq.

400 days, lets see. That would put the date some 2 months ahead of the november elections.

Elections were what the war was all about all along-- domestic US elections, that is... Oh, that and the oil, too.
posted by y2karl at 10:48 AM on July 18, 2005

I had been told this mission was already accomplished.

Apparently, I was misinformed.
posted by ToasT at 10:52 AM on July 18, 2005

"Elections were what the war was all about all along-- domestic US elections"

Utterly unsustainable line of thought. Bush was damn near to losing that election 'because' of the War. No political strategist would have advised an invasion based on the flimsy evidence the Bush Administration had. Unfortunately for everyone, Kerry was the other guy.
posted by j.p. Hung at 10:57 AM on July 18, 2005

Does anyone have some links to places that seriously consider the "immediate withdrawal" option? Because, from where I sit, it seems like there really is no 'good' option left. Why not simply pull everyone out immediately, and completely? Sure, the country would be left in a bad spot, just like it would with several other withdrawal strategies, but we'd at least stop being the occupying force (which, in my mind, is of significant importance to resolving the situation)

Anyway, without getting into a fight in-thread, does anyone have some links to documents discussing this type of pullout?
posted by odinsdream at 11:12 AM on July 18, 2005

Bush was damn near to losing that election 'because' of the War.

Put down the crack pipe, look up the poll numbers for Bush's most ardent supports. Notice where he does well?

Yea, that's the war.

Can you guess the number of times a sitting war president has been unseated?

It's between 0.
posted by wah at 11:15 AM on July 18, 2005

ToasT writes "I had been told this mission was already accomplished.

"Apparently, I was misinformed."

heh.
posted by OmieWise at 11:17 AM on July 18, 2005

Utterly unsustainable line of thought.

American elections dictate timing of an attack, London Times, July 11, 2002:

The rhythms of the American electoral cycle mean that if President Bush fails to attack Iraq at the beginning of next year, he may have missed his chance.

The Pentagon is unlikely to consider launching thousands of US troops across the desert in the following summer months, when temperatures rarely fall below 100F.

There is an opportunity to strike in the autumn of next year, officials say, but waiting until then risks the fighting spilling over into 2004, leaving President Saddam Hussein's fate unresolved at the start of a presidential election year, something that Republican political strategists are loath to contemplate.

Despite Mr Bush's early rhetoric against Saddam, his room for manoeuvre has always been limited by the calendar. Reports of an invasion being launched this autumn were always likely to be wide of the mark. Americans go to the polls in early November for the critical mid-term elections and Republican strategists do not want their quest to regain control of the Senate wrecked by the unpredictability of war.

When we invaded Iraq, Cheney was telling us we'd be greeted as liberators, Rumsfeld was saying the war would last six months tops, and Bush was saying we weren't going to have any casualties. Some of them probably believed it.
posted by kirkaracha at 11:44 AM on July 18, 2005

"He was thinking about invading Iraq in 1999," said author and Houston Chronicle journalist Mickey Herskowitz. "It was on his mind. He said, 'One of the keys to being seen as a great leader is to be seen as a commander-in-chief.' And he said, 'My father had all this political capital built up when he drove the Iraqis out of Kuwait and he wasted it.' He went on, 'If I have a chance to invade…, if I had that much capital, I'm not going to waste it. I'm going to get everything passed that I want to get passed and I'm going to have a successful presidency.'"

Bush apparently accepted a view that Herskowitz, with his long experience of writing books with top Republicans, says was a common sentiment: that no president could be considered truly successful without one military "win" under his belt. Leading Republicans had long been enthralled by the effect of the minuscule Falklands War on British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher's popularity, and ridiculed Democrats such as Jimmy Carter who were reluctant to use American force. Indeed, both Reagan and Bush's father successfully prosecuted limited invasions (Grenada, Panama and the Gulf War) without miring the United States in endless conflicts.

Why George Went To War
posted by y2karl at 11:47 AM on July 18, 2005

Can you guess the number of times a sitting war president has been unseated?

Without having researched prior to posting this, I'm guessing this is the closest to it the US ever came by a fair margin, all the way back to 1864, when there was some question about whether Lincoln could hold things together long enough for the Civil War to be won. In spite of a lackluster opponent, W didn't win a resounding victory -- a few thousand voters in Ohio could've tipped the balance due to the vagaries of the "winner take all" Electoral College system.

on preview: kirkaracha, history is going to make them eat their words, whether they believed themselves or not.
posted by alumshubby at 11:48 AM on July 18, 2005

Can you guess the number of times a sitting war president has been unseated?

Does LBJ not even bothering to seek reelection count?

I'm with J.P. Hung on this one- Bush already was already getting "wartime president" support based on 9/11 and Afghanistan. Invading Iraq was much more likely to hinder his poll numbers than help them.
posted by Uncle Ira at 12:19 PM on July 18, 2005

Does LBJ not even bothering to seek reelection count?

Not really, since he didn't lose an election as a sitting President during an ongoing war.

Invading Iraq was much more likely to hinder his poll numbers than help them.

I don't really see how that could be the case. Certainly amoung the hard left (and peace crowd) he had already lost and therefore not invading wouldn't have helped. For the middle and his supporters, after pumping up the perceived threat Iraq posed and doing something about it...I don't think it hurt in the slightest.

In other words, if he hadn't invaded he would have lost, IMHO.
posted by wah at 12:30 PM on July 18, 2005

Normally I am content to sit and read many of the well thought out responses here in the blue. But occasionally I can't resist making a snarky comment.
Therefore:
Are you guys serious?
Do you really think we want to pull out of Iraq while there is still a hundred barrels of oil that would then be unprotected?
Not while Geo. Bush or any other republican president is at the helm.
There will never be less than 50,000 U.S. troops in or around the so called green zone.
Sorry. Just had to mouth off.
Back to my troll hole.
posted by notreally at 12:40 PM on July 18, 2005

Oh, and I wrote a bit about the need for a timeline just the other day (self-link), although I was quite a bit less specific and more general about why it is necessary. Plus, I endorsed the Rob Malda approach to roll-out.
posted by wah at 12:41 PM on July 18, 2005

JP Hung and Uncle Ira:

You both seem to be employing 20/20 hindsight, and looking at the wrong elections. The Iraq invasion, while probably already planned, was timed to help the mid-term 2002 elections. Specifically, a quasi-war resolution was requested on the eve of the elections in Nov 2002, at a time that was considerably less than opportune for actual decision-making, so that Republicans could have a "coward Democrat" card to play against any dissenters.

The 2004 election had nothing to do with it. By all indications, Bush et al. actually believed their own bullshit, and had fully planned on being long-gone from Iraq by 2004. The fact that a foundering war effort may have hurt Bush in 2004 has nothing to do with the timing of the Iraqi adventure in 2002-2003.

If Bush manages to come up with a "declare victory and go home" plan that just so happens to bring many (most) troops home by 2008, well, I think it's obvious what that means.
posted by teece at 1:13 PM on July 18, 2005

notreally is right. This would be a reasonable plan in the fantasy world where the U.S. really intended to make the best of the situation for the people in the region. Meanwhile, on this planet, the Bush crew have no interest in ending the occupation, nor even, I suspect, in stabilizing the situation. I don't even pervceive any interest on their part in minimizing casualties. The only goal that explains the situation is grabbing as much oil-rich territory as possible while there's still a lot of it left. All the talk about democracy (formerly weapons, etc.) is just a rubbish "cover story" to pacify the public.

Though I am a U.S. citizen I do not say "we" when referring to actions of the U.S. government - they do not represent me.
posted by jam_pony at 1:51 PM on July 18, 2005

Invading Iraq was much more likely to hinder his poll numbers than help them.


posted by Heywood Mogroot at 2:09 PM on July 18, 2005

The fact that a foundering war effort may have hurt Bush in 2004 has nothing to do with the timing of the Iraqi adventure in 2002-2003.

You're right about the 2002 election, but the timing concerning the 2004 election wasn't that "a foundering war effort may have hurt Bush," it was that they thought the war would be a quick, easy win that would boost him in 2004.
posted by kirkaracha at 3:12 PM on July 18, 2005

it was that they thought the war would be a quick, easy win that would boost him in 2004.

Agreed. That's one thing I was trying to say, apparently badly.
posted by teece at 3:21 PM on July 18, 2005

About 400 suicide bombings have shaken Iraq since the U.S. invasion in 2003, and suicide now plays a role in two out of every three insurgent bombings. In May, an estimated 90 suicide bombings were carried out in the war-torn country -- nearly as many as the Israeli government has documented in the conflict with Palestinians since 1993.

Suicide Bombs Potent Tools of Terrorists

Currently the rate of suicide in Iraq bombings is one a day.
400 days @ 1 suicide bomb attack a day = 400 suicide bomb attacks.

Well, if we don't get started soon, we can hang a big red and yellow sign from the Hands of Victory Arch reading  Iraq: Over 1000 Suicide Bombers Detonated!  before we bring all the troops home.
posted by y2karl at 3:25 PM on July 18, 2005

y2karlfilter
posted by swerdloff at 8:47 PM on July 18, 2005

y2karl, the marriage thing is cute. Too bad bugmenot doon't seem to work on latimes.com anymore.
posted by jeffburdges at 2:24 AM on July 19, 2005

Too bad bugmenot doon't seem to work on latimes.com anymore.

Um, well, too bad you didn't try Google some text when it didn't.

First hit: Newsday. No registration required.
posted by y2karl at 4:07 AM on July 19, 2005