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Gens.: Iraq withdrawal will be long process

Pulling the U.S. military out of Iraq would be a massive undertaking and would have to be done slowly and deliberately, defense officials said Friday. One general said it would take up to 18 months to cut his troop levels in northern Iraq in half.

The length of the withdrawal would depend largely on the level of violence in Iraq. It would be more difficult and take far longer if forces had to get out while intense fighting was going on.

Noting that it took a year to bring U.S. troops out of Kuwait in the early 1990s, Defense Secretary Robert Gates said that was under good conditions where there was a “permissive environment” and easy access to ports and airports to move troops and equipment.

“You’re talking about not just U.S. soldiers, but millions of tons of contractor equipment that belongs to the United States government, and a variety of other things,” Gates told Pentagon reporters. “This is a massive logistical undertaking whenever it takes place.”

At the same time, however, Gen. Peter Pace, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, revealed that the ability of Iraqi forces to take over independent security of their own country has dramatically dropped in recent months — from 10 Iraqi battalions in March to six today.

The congressionally mandated assessment of progress in Iraq released Thursday said the number of Iraqi forces capable of independent operation had declined, but it provided no details. Pace’s numbers underscored the challenges in Iraq, and the dismal progress the Iraqis have made over the last six months in their effort to stand up their own army so the U.S. troops can go home.

Pace, however, said there was no need to be “overly concerned” about the decline in readiness because it reflects that the Iraqi soldiers are out doing battlefield operations.

“As units operate in the field, they have casualties, they consume vehicles and equipment,” he said, adding that while the U.S. wants to see the numbers improve, “it is a valid thing to chase, but we shouldn’t put too much weight on minor variations” in the numbers.

Pace said there are about 6,000 U.S. troops involved in training the Iraqi security forces, and officials may have to look at increasing the number of training teams or the number of troops in each.

The difficulty in getting out of Iraq was highlighted Friday by Maj. Gen. Benjamin R. Mixon, the top U.S. commander in northern Iraq. Speaking to Pentagon reporters via video from his post, Mixon said he has between five and six brigades under his command, and it would take up to 18 months to cut that number in half. A brigade is about 3,500 troops.

He added that it would be a mistake to begin any withdrawal like that before January 2008.

Mixon agreed that the Iraqi government is not at all close to mastering logistics and other issues needed to make its security forces capable of taking over responsibility from U.S. forces. But he also pointed to a number of military successes — the number of militants captured, weapons caches seized, terrain retaken and so on.

Any drawdown of troops, he said, “needs to be well-thought-out and it cannot be a strategy that is based on, ‘Well, we need to leave.’ That’s not a strategy, that’s a withdrawal.”

He said cutting his troops by half could leave a minimum force that “would continue to work with the Iraqi forces in a training and assistance mode, have the capability to react and assist the Iraqi forces if required, and provide them those capabilities that they don’t have, like attack aviation, air force fixed-wing support and medical support.”

Asked about the speed of withdrawal, Pace said that about one brigade per month could be taken out of Iraq. One reason, he said, is because as one brigade leaves, others have to take over that territory.

“What you want to be careful of is that you don’t get yourself into a Mixmaster, where you’re changing boundaries every month amongst 20, 19, 18, 17 brigades,” Pace said. “You want to have a good feel for what your end state is going to be so that when you start arranging your forces on the battlefield, you’re not causing additional strain and misunderstandings amongst boundaries.”

Gates added that the withdrawal plans would also depend on what type of long-term agreement the U.S. military has with the Iraqi government. Such agreements would govern whether the U.S. has any limited or permanent facilities in the country, the number of forces there and where they could be located.

None of those questions have been answered yet, he said.