Retreating from Iraq

Fortunately for us, the Washington Post is still allowing Tom Ricks to commit acts of real journalism. He co-authored an article about Pentagon war-gaming over Iraq War options, Exit Strategies by Karen DeYoung and Thomas Ricks Washington Post 07/17/07, that contains this reminder:

History is replete with bad withdrawal outcomes. Among the most horrific was the British departure from Afghanistan in 1842, when 16,500 active troops and civilians left Kabul thinking they had safe passage to India. Two weeks later, only one European arrived alive in Jalalabad, near the Afghan-Indian border.

The Soviet Union's withdrawal from Afghanistan, which began in May 1988 after a decade of occupation, reveals other mistakes to avoid. Like the U.S. troops who arrived in Iraq in 2003, the Soviet force in Afghanistan was overwhelmingly conventional, heavy with tanks and other armored vehicles. Once Moscow made public its plans to leave, the political and security situations unraveled much faster than anticipated. "The Soviet Army actually had to fight out of certain areas," said Army Maj. Daniel Morgan, a two-tour veteran of the Iraq war who has been studying the Soviet pullout at Fort Leavenworth, Kan., with an eye toward gleaning lessons for Iraq. "As a matter of fact, they had to airlift out of Kandahar, the fighting was so bad."

The risks involved in a pull-out is one argument that war supporters use to oppose any move toward withdrawal. Of course, no war critics that I can think of is pretending there are no risks to American troops in withdrawal. On the contrary, force protection concerns have bee a major piece of the various withdrawal proposals discussed in Congress.

But some war critics and probably most war supporters are likely to be underestimating the possible risks of some kind of actual rout occurring, at least in some parts of Iraq under certain conditions. A badly-implented, large-scale withdrawal would be one. The aftermath of an over military attack on Iran would be another. That's not to say it's inevitable, or even the most likely scenario. But it shouldn't be discounted. And it's one of the reasons I'm dubious about the feasibility of leaving 40 or 50 thousand US troops in Iraq for training and forays against "Al Qaida".

Josh Marshall adds his own comments in Getting Out, in Detail, TPM 07/17/07:

The situation in a destabilized country can change very quickly once the word gets out that the occupying power is pulling out. There are some harrowing examples from the Soviet pull-out from Afghanistan, particularly cases where they literally had to fight their way out of certain areas. A key issue here is that when you figure not just how many people but how much equipment the US has in Iraq you can't just airlift everything out.

To me this is an argument not to remain in denial for so long that we literally have no choice but to get out quickly. We still have time to manage a phased withdrawal which is integrated with a political plan. Not clear whether that will be the case in a year when we will no longer be able to sustain our current deployment.

Pat Lang has been warning about such risks for a while, notably in The vulnerable line of supply to US troops in Iraq Christian Science Monitor 07/21/06.

Tags: iraq war, patrick lang