Media General News Service August 12, 2007
Iraq Exit: Leaving is complicated process, some say
By James W. Crawley
Many Democrats in Congress and on the presidential-campaign trail want our troops out of Iraq.
Some want a quick exit in a few months, and others prefer a measured withdrawal without a specific deadline.
Military analysts and retired officers said that leaving Iraq won’t be as easy as setting a date and turning off the lights on the way out.
An orderly withdrawal could take from six months to 18 months, they said.
“The main concern is protecting our troops while leaving a reasonably sustainable security situation for the Iraqis,” said Loren Thompson, a military analyst at the Lexington Institute, a national-security research group in Arlington, Va.
Fast-moving forces captured Baghdad in three weeks in 2003. Since then, the military has settled in for a long stay.
“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,” Defense Secretary Robert Gates said.
Tents became air-conditioned accommodation trailers, which morphed into hardened barracks. Vacant fields were converted into parking lots and motor pools.
Forward operating bases have become modern-day walled cities with dining halls, stores and gyms.
Baghdad’s Green Zone has fast-food restaurants, Internet cafes, swimming pools and bomb shelters.
Hundreds of bases and supply depots hold all the ammunition, fuel, food, computers and equipment needed by more than 160,000 soldiers, Marines, sailors and airmen.
For example, take the Air Force Theater Hospital in Balad, Iraq, where many of the most seriously wounded soldiers are treated.
When the hospital was set up in 2003, it was like a MASH unit - everything from operating rooms, patient wards, laboratories and X-ray machines were portable.
This month, the hospital moved into a reinforced concrete building. Like a big-city trauma hospital, the Balad facility now has eight state-of-the-art operating rooms, intensive-care units, an emergency room, two high-tech CT scanners, power generators and tons of medical equipment and supplies.
It’s not something that can be packed up and trucked out in a day or two. And, it may be too valuable to leave behind.
Troops can be airlifted home aboard military and civilian jetliners, but removing a tank or Humvee is more complicated.
The Army would drive them to Kuwait because flying them out in scarce cargo planes would be too expensive. Once in Kuwait, they would be steam cleaned and inspected for pests and contaminants before being loaded on ships for a 24-day journey home.
How fast troops leave Iraq could determine how much equipment is left behind and whether the withdrawal would be under fire, several analysts said.
“We could get out of Iraq very quickly if we don’t mind a Dunkirk-style operation,” said Thompson, referring to the British retreat from France during the early months of World War II. Although 338,000 British and French soldiers were rescued, all their tanks, guns and ammunition were lost.
“It will take a long time to depart (Iraq) without creating chaos in our wake,” he said.
A deliberate withdrawal would be favorable, said John Pike, a defense analyst with GlobalSecurity.org, an independent research group in Alexandria, Va. He said that it could be years before U.S. forces pull out.
“The longer we take, the better it will look,” he said. “The more it looks like victory, and the less it looks like defeat.”
Others disagree with the notion that slow is better.
“The quicker you get out, the better from a security point of view,” said Lawrence Korb, a senior fellow at the Center for American Progress, a liberal research group in Washington.
He said that a reasonable withdrawal would take six months as bases in northern and western areas are closed down and troops moved closer to Baghdad and Kuwait.
Forward bases would be turned over to Iraqi forces as American units withdrew, Korb said.
But, Pike cautioned, leaving large amounts of equipment in Iraq could encourage wholesale looting. “Things will be showing up on the black market before the last U.S. troops are out of Iraq,” he said.
He suggested that anything that could be loaded onto a truck or trailer should be hauled out of Iraq.
Pike said that it is not economically feasible to return much of the stockpiled war material back home. “Burn and blow up everything else,”
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