In the coverage of the American drawdown in Iraq, all of the celebratory ‘end of the combat mission’ rhetoric has largely glossed over the 50,000 US troops that will remain in the country. I was, therefore, pleasantly surprised to read this bit of honesty in the Washington Post, particularly this paragraph (UPDATE: for a more in-depth explanation of the ‘post-combat’ strucutre, see the Army Times):
By the end of this month, the United States will have six brigades in Iraq, by far its smallest footprint since the 2003 invasion. Those that remain are conventional combat brigades reconfigured slightly and rebranded “advise and assist brigades.” The primary mission of those units and the roughly 4,500 U.S. special operations forces that will stay behind will be to train Iraqi troops.
Yes, training might be their primary mission, but I find it hard to believe that we’ll have 50,000 troops just staffing desks ‘mostly in offices’, as reported on NBC News last night.
Those advisers are likely to continue to patrol the streets with Iraqi units in the embedded Military Transition Teams (MiTTs – at least that was the term when I was last there), and the United States isn’t going to commit 4,500 SOF solely for the training mission. There will still be counter-terrorism operations in coordination with the Iraqis that could also result in American casualties. I wonder if there will be any backlash from the public when ‘trainers’ and ‘advisers’ continue to die after this overselling job on the end of the ‘combat mission’. My inclination is to say ‘no’, but only because the American public is so focused on the economy and casualties in neither Iraq nor Afghanistan seem to register at the moment, though I’m admittedly an outside observer from London these days. Thoughts?
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“My inclination is to say ‘no’, but only because the American public is so focused on the economy and casualties in neither Iraq nor Afghanistan seem to register at the moment…”
This is correct.
Without commenting on your choice of “news” sources to determine what is actually occurring from the US perspective (;-) ), I agree with Evan and would add that it is not just the economy that has the attention of many Americans.
If one looks a bit deeper, you will also notice that we are preoccupied with just about anything other than things as nuanced and seemingly intractable as “war” as now practiced in our post 9/11 world.
Indeed, that we are “at war”at all, much less anything as meaty as your questions, is lost on most Americans unless they are “unfortunate” enough to have a loved one or neighbor involved in the military or our politicians determine there is some political advantage to be had by injecting such matters into the public “discourse.”
While a footprint of 50K. troops remain, a draw-down of the U.S. military commitment in Iraq must begin somewhere – That is not to say we’re home free, and I am hopeful of myriad contingency plans somewhere accounting for the possibilities of resurgent insurgency(ies), the precarious nature of a representative Iraqi federal government and ever-present reality of Iranian influence and capabilities that might be mobilized in ways counter-productive to both a stable Iraq and U.S. interests (just to scratch the surface of a long list of challenges and complexities).
Re-branding of the significant U.S. force still in place is better than its precipitous removal (or indefinite deployment) and while a cynical critique of the corresponding geopolitical marketing campaign might be justified, the tangible draw-down and efforts to shift perceptions about the U.S. engagement is a start, and a seemingly well executed one at that.
It sure looked good on MSNBC last night in any event.
I’m in DC and I tend to agree with Monsieur Hyphen. I haven’t seen too much of a public backlash over the suicide problem. I think (and hope) it will turn into something resembling the MAC/V from 1960-65, but in reverse, with violence declining. No doubt, the bad guys will still manage some big, headline grabbing attacks, but nothing as bad as what we saw in 2006-7. Of course, this is all Inshallah.
I don’t think most Americans are so naive as to believe what they see/hear/read on TV/Internet. We didn’t spend all that blood and money to walk away and leave the place to the Iranians.We still have troops in Germany & Japan, those peace treaties were signed 65 years ago.
We’ll be there for a long time. The Iraqi’s want us there because we are the only military force “trusted” by all 3 sides of the political triangle. Without our presence, a civil war will have to be fought.
We will stay, because we have a vested self interest in the region (oil), and we need a base for our military.
The Spanish-American war ended in 1898, and we still have troops in Cuba. Those troops aren’t there because the Cubans need us to protect them against invasion.
I agree that there is something disingenuous about saying that Advise and Assist BDEs are really not combat units, although the change in tone is probably useful at various levels (as pointed out in the post title of re-branding).
Note that Advise and assist BDEs are not the same as MITTs. The one is a full up combat BDE (regardless of the reporting to the contrary) augmented with a set of 30-40 personnel for advising duties (not always used for those purposes). MITTs are much smaller teams (usually 10-15 personnel) embedded with the Iraqi military (or police or border forces in alternate configurations).
The 50k probably currently includes both Advise and assist BDEs and various forms of embedded advisory teams. The BDEs were a twist on unit to unit partnership as an advisory process but it is uncertain if they can effectively serve as a substitute for an effective overall advisory strategy, partly because of their own requirements for care and feeding of themselves.
In Afghanistan I fear that the US Army’s approach in this same regard has more to do with a rationale for leaving large numbers of big Army units in country, rather than the best or most efficient or effective way to train large numbers of security forces.
This is also another aspect:
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/08/19/world/middleeast/19withdrawal.html?_r=1&partner=rss&emc=rss
On what Americans value most, I have to say that you’ve probably got it right. At times that might not be bad, economics determines a large degree of history, but it also makes us apathetic.
As for the soldiers I suspect (and hope) that their real use will be force multipliers with a focus on bolstering the professionalism of the Iraqi military. It’s a bit irritating being forced to wait ten or more years for a decent book looking back at this.
Since the issue of suicide came up here is this I just received:
http://www.defense.gov/releases/release.aspx?releaseid=13810
I’m glad to see this topic has generated some discussion.
Cincinattus Jr. – I deliberately chose those sources because they NBC news gets relatively wide viewership and the Washington Post was the only one I saw to accurately charaterise the remaining 50,000. Point taken on all of the other things that take the public’s attention. Thanks also for the links.
Jon – I don’t think I’m being cynical, just pointing out the linguistic flexibility required to explain that 50,000 armed troops partnered with a host-nation military conducting a counter-insurgency IS NOT combat. But I agree that it’s better to go this route than a precipitous withdrawal (so long as it does not backfire when we do continue to take casualties, albeit at a reduced level).
IronCapt – funny you should mention Vietnam in reverse. I have often used a similar analogy to discuss the arc of our presence, especially back in 2005-06 during the ‘they stand up, we stand down’ phase. I likewise hope the attack trends continue their general, positive (decreasing) trajectory.
Mike – I’m not so sure the Iraqis can back out of the Status of Forces Agreement that has us entirely out by the end of 2011 for domestic reasons, even if the Iraqi military and some elites want to. Yes, there will be small contingents to advise the Iraqis on how to use and maintain all the American hardware we’ve sold them (M1 tanks, F-16s, etc.) for years to come (perhaps technically in the Defense Attache’s office), but as for the Iranian influence, it’s still unclear to me how our presence thus far has limited their involvement in the Iraqi political process.
David – quite right to point out the difference between MiTTs and A&A Bdes. As I understood it, these days MiTTs are embedded in a specific Iraqi unit, which is then paired with a particular A&A Bde, which is, as you point out, also supplemented with its own advisory element. Or have things changed?
Formerly Grant – in the short term, I think even more than the professionalism will be the actual combat enablers advisors can bring – ISR, CAS, MedEvac, etc. Professionalism is a longer game than the next 16 months of ‘advise and assist’.
Here is a poll getting a fair amount of coverage with headlines to the effect that a majority of Americans disapprove of our involvement in Afghanistan.
http://www.ap-gfkpoll.com/pdf/AP-GfK%20Poll%2018th%20August%202010%20Iraq-Afghanistan.pdf
It is sad when words like “rebranding” enters the vernacular of war. Military families are well aware of the risks. Though the press is freely bandying the term “Combat troops pulling out,” this is by and large is a matter of semantics. Of course the remaining troops are ready for combat: were they not, they wouldn’t be soldiers, Marines, airmen and sailors.
This “rebranding” allows the apathetic part of America who never wanted to think about war to delude itself that “all is normal,” and never to think about it again. This includes people on both the right on the left. It has also given anti-military groups like Code Pink to “claim credit for framing the debate that dominated the elections in 2006 and the Democratic presidential primary in 2008. ”
In addition, Democrats and some Republicans will use it as proof of their hard work when it comes time for elections.
The truth is everyone uses “rebranding” to further their own agenda. The families however, still see it very much as dangerous, high risk, and uncertain. No doubt, many Iraqis see as such as well.