The Daunting Logistics of Withdrawal--A Times

Up now in the new World Media Watch (URL below in sig), tomorrow at Buzzflash.com)


3//Asia Times Online, Hong Kong Dec 9, 2005

http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Middle_East/GL09Ak01.html



THE DAUNTING LOGISTICS OF WITHDRAWAL

By David Isenberg

(David Isenberg, a senior analyst with the Washington-based British American Security Information Council (BASIC), has a wide background in arms control and national security issues.)

Almost no consideration has been given to the question of just how fast the US can remove its forces from Iraq. But one can bet that logisticians in the Pentagon and Central Command planning cells have already been working on that question for some time.

Military officers have a saying: "Amateurs talk about strategy, dilettantes talk about tactics, and professionals talk about logistics."

On the plus side, the US military is experienced in moving forces out of the Persian Gulf region. In 1991 it was able to bring back from Kuwait to the US and Europe almost all of its over half million forces in a matter of months. Since then US military infrastructure has improved.

Additionally, since the US invasion of Iraq in 2003, US forces have undergone three rotations into Iraq (the last one taking place from March to July this year) and are preparing for a fourth. They have lots of experience in moving troops and equipment, in divisionsize formations, out of Iraq.

This time, however, the US would not be using the excellent ports and airfields in Saudi Arabia that it had access to in 1991. Nor were US troops battling an organized and deadly insurgency.

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For example, the implications of the following are significant:

"Another difference is that to a far greater degree than was the case in 1991, the US military has outsourced its logistics functions to the private sector. Companies like Halliburton and its Kellog, Brown and Root subsidiary will have to coordinate with the military to an unprecedented degree, through the Logistics Civilian Augmentation Program (LOGCAP), which Halliburton was re-awarded in 2001."

Integrating civilian contractors into critical military functions is a terrible idea, and, in practice, one driven by a reckless ideology, staggering greed and corruption unmatched since (at least) the Civil War.

The piece does leave certain things out. However, for legitimate issues of national security, certain things cannot be said ('cause these assertions just might prove correct), even if these assertions are the results of analysis as opposed to substantial in-field information.

But two things (although both are kinda implied): first, contractors will also need evacuated, and as some of these may be providing important support functions, pulling them out first may be impractical; and second, having been over there for some time, there may be significant forward accumulations of war material (and war waste) that need dealt with.

My guess is that the Preble rough estimate is somewhat low and the Pike rough estimate somewhat high (the 10% can also be seen as ambiguous, but starting-forces is most likely the intended base, as opposed to remaining-forces).

And I am delighted to see someone speaking to logistics.

It all comes down to beans and bullets, as they say. (Of course, this is an oversimplification, but it still makes an important point.)

However, the last paragraph is discouraging. With corruption on the scale that it is in Iraq, turning saleable materials over to the "Iraqi Security Forces" is a questionable practice on these grounds alone... and there are others.

And there are some other good nuggets in this piece.

http://securingamerica.com/tsap/050906


Conference: Terrorism, Security & America's Purpose: Towards a More Comprehensive Strategy (September 6, 2005)
Remarks by General Wesley Clark: Former Supreme Allied Commander, NATO and former candidate for President of the United States
Watch the videoclip

Conference: Terrorism, Security & America's Purpose: Towards a More Comprehensive Strategy
September 6, 2005
Washington, D.C.

(SNIP)

Q: You spoke of how we need to change our course in Iraq before it's too late. My question is, and we've heard a lot about it this morning, about how our U.S. presence in Iraq is creating rather than vanquishing our enemies. Isn't it already too late? Isn't the course we need to adopt one of an orderly withdrawal?

General Clark: Well, I would say that's not the right course to adopt, right now. And I want you to picture what would happen if we announced we're coming out. Now just imagine it, OK. The president, right after Labor Day, you know they always say never announce anything new before Labor Day, the president comes on national TV and says, "I've heard your thoughts, my fellow countrymen, we've lost 2,000 American's, spent 200 billion dollars and we're coming out. We're coming home."

Well the men and women in the armed forces can do it. It will be a fighting withdrawal because the insurgents will be on the heels of the American columns as they come out. I can picture our men and women in those humvees and the dump trucks. You can see them taking fire and asking, "Should I shoot back, if I shoot back who's in that building?" I can see a long and bloody retreat. It will take several weeks to get out of there, four or five weeks. Or if you stage it, it will be bloodier and more difficult for longer. The insurgents will claim they won. But that claim will be disputed by Al Qaeda. They'll say that they drove us out.

And the people who helped us in Iraq will be targeted. They already are targeted but they've got some assistance and support. That will go away quickly. These people will be running for their lives. 200, 300, 500, 800,000, a million. Everybody who ever talked to an American. We don't know where the boundary will be. But it won't be pretty.

And when it's said that we are coming out, the political process that we've put in place will start to come apart, naturally. People are already preparing. There's plenty of private militias there. They've got scores to settle, territory to gain, cleansing to do, resources to capture and I'm sure the Kurds will decide, you know they aren't Arabs anyway, they'll go their own way. So I would expect a pretty rapid recourse not only to civil war but regional conflict, if we were to pull out and say 'we're coming home.' Now, that's my scenario. It reduces American prestige, influence and power all around the world.

Q: These things have happened already, sir.

General Clark: Well, not to the extent I think I've sketched it out. So what I'd say is, that there is a middle ground or a better ground, than staying the course or announcing a withdrawal. We need to change that course and use America's leadership and power not only militarily but diplomatically and politically in the region to become a focus for regional cooperation. It is not yet too late.

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