Iraq WD War Cost 5 articles Wallerstein et al

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[5 SHORT READINGS COUNT AS 1 FOR RDP’S &
NOTES – ON IRAQ WAR END & COST OF WAR]


US Withdrawal and Defeat in Iraq
[Defeat is debatable, but withdraw & reasons for it are outlined below—Dunn]

by Immanuel Wallerstein

       [Senior Research Scholar at Yale University, is the author of The Decline of American
       Power: The US in a Chaotic World (New Press).]

Published on Wednesday, November 2, 2011 by Immanuel Wallerstein's Blog


It is now official. All uniformed U.S. troops will be withdrawn from Iraq by Dec. 31, 2011.
There are two major ways of describing this. One is by President Obama, who says that he is
thereby keeping an electoral promise he made in 2008. The second is by the Republican
presidential candidates, who have condemned Obama for not doing what they say the U.S.
military wanted, which is to keep some U.S. troops there after Dec. 31 as “trainers” to the Iraqi
military. According to Mitt Romney, Obama’s decision was either “the result of naked political
calculation or simply sheer ineptitude in negotiations with the Iraqi government.”

Both statements are nonsense, and merely represent self-justifying arguments for the American
electorate. Obama tried his hardest, and in total conjunction with the U.S. military
commanders and the Pentagon, to keep U.S. troops there after Dec. 31. He failed, not
because of ineptitude, but because the Iraqi political leaders forced the U.S. troops to leave.
The withdrawal marks the culmination of the U.S. defeat in Iraq, one comparable to the
U.S. defeat in Vietnam.

What really happened? For the last eighteen months at least, the U.S. authorities have been
trying as hard as they could to negotiate an agreement with the Iraqis that would override
the one signed by President George W. Bush to withdraw all troops by Dec. 31, 2011. They
failed, but not for want to trying hard.

By any definition, the most pro-American groups are the Sunni groups led by Ayad Allawi, a
man with notoriously close links with the CIA, and the party of Jalal Talebani, Kurdish president
of Iraq. Both men in the end said, no doubt reluctantly, that it was better that U.S. troops leave.

The Iraqi leader who tried hardest to arrange for U.S. troops to remain was Prime Minister Nouri
al-Malaki. He obviously believed that the poor ability of the Iraqi military to maintain order
would lead to new elections in which his own position would be gravely weakened, and he
would probably cease to be prime minister.
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The United States made concession after concession, reducing constantly the number of
troops they would leave behind. The sticking point in the end was the insistence of the
Pentagon on immunity for U.S. soldiers (and mercenaries) from Iraqi jurisdiction for any
crimes of which they might be accused. Maliki was ready to agree to this, but no one else was.
In particular, the Sadrists said they would withdraw their support for the government if Maliki
agreed. And without their support, Maliki did not have the necessary majority in parliament.

Who won then? The withdrawal was a victory for Iraqi nationalism. And the person who has
come to incarnate Iraqi nationalism is none other than Muqtada al-Sadr. It is true that al-Sadr
leads a Shi’ite movement that has historically been violently anti-Baathist, which for his
followers has usually meant being anti-Sunni Muslims. But al-Sadr has long since moved beyond
this initial position to make himself and his movement the champion of U.S. withdrawal. He has
reached out to Sunni leaders and to Kurdish leaders in the hope of creating a pan-Iraqi nationalist
front, centered on the restoration of full Iraqi autonomy. He has won…[Dunn cut rest for space
reasons]




Under Iraq troop pact, U.S. can't leave any forces behind
Leila Fadel | McClatchy Newspapers
November 18, 2008 06:51:20 PM
http://www.mcclatchydc.com/homepage/story/56110.html

BAGHDAD — The status of forces of agreement between the United States and Iraq is now called
the withdrawal agreement, and that's exactly what it is: an ultimate end to the U.S.-led occupation
of Iraq.

If Iraq's parliament endorses the agreement, in six weeks American forces would have to change the way
they operate in Iraq, and all U.S. combat troops, police trainers and military advisers would have to leave
the country by Dec. 31, 2011. President-elect Barack Obama's campaign plan to leave a residual force
of some 30,000 American troops in Iraq would be impossible under the pact.

Unless the agreement is amended, which would require the formal written approval of both sides, in three
years there no longer would be any legal basis for U.S. armed forces or civilian contractors of the
Department of Defense to remain in Iraq.

If Iraq wants American forces to leave earlier, it could terminate the agreement with one year's notice.
The United States has the option to do the same.

The American military now can come and go as it pleases in Iraq. It raids homes without judicial
approval, controls Iraq's airspace, detains civilians without warrants for as long as it wants and conducts
unilateral operations against high-value targets, including a recent cross-border attack on an al Qaida in
Iraq member in Syria that was condemned by Iraq, the Arab League and Syria.
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US Cost of War at Least $3.7 Trillion and Counting
by Daniel Trotta
Published on Wednesday, June 29, 2011 by Reuters
http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/06/29/us-usa-war-idUSTRE75S25320110629


    When President Barack Obama cited cost as a reason to bring troops home from Afghanistan, he
referred to a $1 trillion price tag for America's wars.
    Staggering as it is, that figure grossly underestimates the total cost of wars in Iraq, Afghanistan
and Pakistan to the U.S. Treasury and ignores more imposing costs yet to come, according to a study
released on Wednesday.
    The final bill will run at least $3.7 trillion and could reach as high as $4.4 trillion, according to
the research project "Costs of War" by Brown University's Watson Institute for International Studies.
   In the 10 years since U.S. troops went into Afghanistan to root out the al Qaeda leaders behind the
September 11, 2001, attacks, spending on the conflicts totaled $2.3 trillion to $2.7 trillion.
     Those numbers will continue to soar when considering often overlooked costs such as long-term
obligations to wounded veterans and projected war spending from 2012 through 2020. The estimates do
not include at least $1 trillion more in interest payments coming due and many billions more in expenses
that cannot be counted, according to the study.
    In human terms, 224,000 to 258,000 people have died directly from warfare, including 125,000
civilians in Iraq. Many more have died indirectly, from the loss of clean drinking water, healthcare,
and nutrition. An additional 365,000 have been wounded and 7.8 million people -- equal to the
combined population of Connecticut and Kentucky -- have been displaced… [Dunn cut rest for space
reasons]




Panel Finds Widespread Waste In
Wartime Contracts
by Scott Neuman
NPR News
http://www.npr.org/2011/08/31/140092937/panel-finds-widespread-waste-in-wartime-contracts
August 31, 2011

    Waste and fraud in Iraq and Afghanistan have cost U.S. taxpayers as much as $60 billion, and
the tally could grow, according to a government study released Wednesday.
    In its final report to Congress, the nonpartisan Commission on Wartime Contracting said lax
oversight of contractors, poor planning and corruption resulted in losses of "at least $31 billion,
and possibly as much as $60 billion" out of some $206 billion in total payments to contractors by
the end of the current fiscal year.
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    "Much of the waste, fraud, and abuse revealed in Iraq and Afghanistan stems from trying to do too
much, treating contractors as a free resource, and failing to adapt U.S. plans and U.S. agencies'
responsibilities to host-nation cultural, political, and economic settings," the 240-page report read.
    "Our conclusion is that there is tremendous over-reliance" on contractors, Henke said.
   Another panel member, former Pentagon Comptroller Dov Zakheim, said the amount of abuse
was sizable: "$206 billion is a lot of money on contracting, but so is $60 billion in waste, of which a
considerable amount — maybe as much as $18 billion — is pure fraud."
    …[Dunn cut rest for space reasons]




New U.S. intelligence report warns 'victory' not
certain in Iraq
Jonathan S. Landay, Warren P. Strobel and Nancy A. Youssef
McClatchy Newspapers
Wed, Oct. 08, 2008

WASHINGTON — A nearly completed high-level U.S. intelligence analysis warns that unresolved
ethnic and sectarian tensions in Iraq could unleash a new wave of violence, potentially reversing the
major security and political gains achieved over the last year….

… U.S. officials say last year's surge of 30,000 troops, all of whom have been withdrawn, was just
one reason for the improvements. Other factors include the truce declared by anti-U.S. cleric
Muqtada al Sadr, the leader of an Iran-backed Shiite Muslim militia; and the enlistment of former
Sunni insurgents in Awakening groups created by the U.S. military to fight al Qaida in Iraq and
other extremists.

The draft NIE, however, warns that the improvements in security and political progress, like the recent
passage of a provincial election law, are threatened by lingering disputes between the majority Shiite
Arabs, Sunni Arabs, Kurds and other minorities, the U.S. officials said.

Sources of tension identified by the NIE, they said, include a struggle between Sunni Arabs, Kurds and
Turkmen for control of the oil-rich northern city of Kirkuk; and the Shiite-led central government's
unfulfilled vows to hire former Sunni insurgents who joined Awakening groups.

A spokesman for Director of National Intelligence Mike McConnell, whose office compiled the estimate,
declined comment, saying the agency does not discuss NIE's.

The findings of the intelligence estimate appear to be reflected in recent statements by Army Gen. David
Petraeus, the former top U.S. commander in Iraq, who has called the situation "fragile" and "reversible"
and said he will never declare victory there…
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The NIE findings parallel a Defense Department assessment last month that warned that despite
"promising developments, security gains in Iraq remain fragile. A number of issues have the potential to
upset progress."

Trouble spots include whether the former Sunni insurgents, also known as the Sons of Iraq, find
permanent employment; provincial elections scheduled for January; Kirkuk's status; the fate of internally
displaced people and returning refugees; and "malign Iranian influence," the unclassified Pentagon report
said.

The intelligence agencies' estimate also raises worries about what would happen if Sadr, the anti-U.S.
cleric, attempts to reassert himself, according to senior intelligence officials familiar with its contents.

If Sadr abandons his cease-fire, it is unclear whether his former followers would rejoin his cause or
whether his movement is permanently fractured, and thus harder to control.

The embattled Sons of Iraq program may prove to be the ultimate challenge to sustained stability in Iraq.
The U.S. program to pay mostly Sunni former insurgents to protect their neighborhoods or in some cases
to stop shooting at Americans is now moving into the hands of the Shiite-led government.

Many of the roughly 100,000 men of the mostly Sunni paramilitary groups have fled to Syria, while
others remain in Iraq, worried that the Shiite government will disband and detain the men. The U.S.
military has promised not to abandon the men, of whom about 54,000 were transferred to Iraqi
government control this month.