Combat brigades will stay in Iraq

(Reuters) New evidence has emerged that the U.S. plans to keep combat brigades in Iraq

 
[Below is a transcript of an interview with Gareth Porter by Amy Goodman and Juan Gonzalez on Democracy Now!]

JUAN GONZALEZ: Under President Obama’s plan, all combat troops will be pulled from Iraq but a transition force of up to 50,000 will remain after August of 2010. Despite the President’s pledge, new evidence has emerged that the U.S. plans to keep combat brigades in Iraq, but they will operate under a different name.

(Watch video: 'Pentagon buying time in Iraq' )

AMY GOODMAN: Investigative reporter Gareth Porter of Inter Press Service has revealed some of the brigade combat teams currently in Iraq will stay beyond August 2010 and will be renamed so-called “advisory and assistance brigades.”

Gareth Porter joins us here in New York. His latest article is called “Despite Obama’s Vow, Combat Brigades Will Stay In Iraq.” So, Gareth Porter, how do you know this? And what exactly is the plan, as you understand it?

GARETH PORTER: Well, the evidence of this plan to continue to keep combat brigades in Iraq past the August 31st deadline is very clear from looking into the military planning that has been done with regard to the brigade combat teams, the basic combat organization of the U.S. Army in Iraq for the past six years. So I basically began to talk to some of the people who’ve been close to the military planning, specifically in the U.S. Army, over the past few months. And there’s no secret about this, in fact.

What’s happening is that the basic combat organization in Iraq, the brigade combat team, is going to be slightly revamped by adding a few dozen, perhaps more than that, officers who will be doing the advising and assistance directly with the Iraqi military and police, perhaps some other institutions, as well—it’s not clear—but they will be added on top of the existing brigade combat team, rather than having any fundamental change in the structure of those organizations in Iraq. So, what we have is the same combat potential, same combat organization, which will remain on the ground in Iraq.

Now, there will be some drawdown. There’s no doubt about that. But the promise that President Obama made on February 27th that all combat brigades would be withdrawn from Iraq, that simply is not true. It’s not going to happen.

JUAN GONZALEZ: In other words, we’re not dealing with a situation that most people associate with non-combat troops, like engineers or construction units that are involved in some kind of infrastructure work. These are actually combat units, just renamed.

GARETH PORTER: Well, that’s exactly right. I mean, it’s not even that there is going to be military advisers who will be out in the field, you know, with the Iraqi units, which I think everyone understood would be the case. When they decided to call these now—they’re renaming the brigade combat teams the “advisory and assistance brigades.” So, I mean, that’s the—it’s the sleight of hand administratively that is being used now to cover the fact that essentially nothing has changed except the addition of, as I say, a few—a relative handful of advisers who will be added to the structures that already exist. But it’s not just people out in the field advising. It’s going to be the same infantry units. The same infantry companies that exist today in Iraq will still be there when the United States is supposedly bringing its combat troops or its combat brigades home.

AMY GOODMAN: Gareth Porter, I wanted to play for you a comment from Defense Secretary Robert Gates. On March 1st, he appeared on Meet the Press and was asked about the 50,000 troops President Obama plans to keep in Iraq after August 2010.

ROBERT GATES: They do have a very different mission, but that mission will be principally a training assistance advisory role. There will be a limited counterterrorism operations aspect to it, and we will still have some soldiers embedded with Iraqi units as part of the training effort. But it’s a very different kind of arrangement, and our soldiers will be consolidated into a limited number of bases in order to provide protection for themselves and for civilians who are out working in the Iraqi neighborhoods and countryside, as well. They will be called “advisory and assistance brigades.” They won’t be called “combat brigades.”

AMY GOODMAN: Gareth Porter?

GARETH PORTER: Well, of course, this was a very broad hint about what was to come. That is to say, he was essentially broadcasting, indirectly, without saying so explicitly, that the plan was to rename the brigade combat teams “advisory and assistance brigades,” a term that does not have “combat” in it, in order to suggest that there’s been a fundamental change in the structure of the units that are being deployed in Iraq. And, of course, it’s the—quite the opposite, in fact.

So, the real question here is, is why the corporate news media did not pick up on this obvious hint and begin to look into this question and report what the real plan was for relabeling these units as non-combat units, which are in fact going to continue to be combat units. In fact, what is really interesting here is that last December, as I point out in my article, the New York Times published an article which reported on planning that was being done in the Pentagon to re-label the existing units, combat units, in Iraq as non-combat units, and this was going to be, as the Times reported, a way in which the military could appeal to Obama to carry out his campaign promise, but still continue to keep combat brigades in Iraq.

So, this is exactly what has happened, but what’s interesting is that there’s been absolutely no reporting, until my story published yesterday, on the fact that this prediction by the New York Times back in December has now been realized.

AMY GOODMAN: I was on a flight from Grand Rapids this past weekend, and I sat next to a military consultant, been in the military for a long time, then aerospace industry, now a consultant. And he said, “Yes, this is great for the military contractors, the war.” But he said, as an American, he is baffled by President Obama pushing this surge and expanded war in Afghanistan. He said he is shocked by it, as many in the military are. And I wanted to ask you, Gareth, about, well, Lieutenant General Eikenberry, who has been nominated to be the U.S. ambassador to Afghanistan. He is the former top U.S. commander in Afghanistan from 2005 to 2007, now would be the main diplomatic representative for the United States.

GARETH PORTER: Yes, this is part of a trend not simply to have high-ranking military officers play some of the key policy roles and even diplomatic roles in the Obama administration. Of course, there’s James Jones as the National Security Adviser, as well as the Director of National Intelligence, Dennis Blair. But in the case of Eikenberry as the new ambassador in Afghanistan, this is disturbing for more than one reason. He is both a very enthusiastic supporter of the idea that this should be a NATO affair in Afghanistan, that this should be a NATO war, and one of those who has been pushing the idea that unless NATO can show success in Afghanistan— it’s going to be in serious trouble as an institution. So there’s a question of whether some of these people are pushing the war, in part, at least, because of their affiliation, affinity to NATO.