Gates pushes to extend occupation of Iraq and tens of thousands of Iraqis protest

Sat Apr 09, 2011 at 09:00 PM EDT
by Laurence Lewis for Daily Kos

This came up on Thursday:

Months before the United States is due to complete its withdrawal from Iraq, Washington is stepping up pressure on Iraqi leaders to decide whether U.S. troops should stay to help fend off a still-potent insurgency.

Defense Secretary Robert Gates, speaking ahead of meetings with Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki and other Iraqi leaders during a visit to Baghdad, said the United States would be willing to consider extending the U.S. military presence in Iraq beyond the end of this year.

It's up to the Iraqis to decide. Not the Americans. And Gates is impatiently waiting for the Iraqis to decide. All they need do is ask:

"We are willing to have a presence beyond (2011), but we've got a lot of commitments," he said, not only in Afghanistan and Libya but also in Japan, where he said 19 U.S. Navy ships and about 18,000 U.S. military personnel are assisting in earthquake, tsunami and nuclear reactor relief efforts.

Um. Yeah. A lot of commitments. Humanitarian aid is one thing, and should be a continuing commitment to many nations, but a military presence is another. As in wasted money. As in sacrificed lives.

"I think there is interest in having a continuing presence. The politics are such that we'll just have to wait and see because the initiative ultimately has to come from the Iraqis."

Not from the Americans. Not from the American people, who voted for Barack Obama at least partially because he said he'd get us out of Iraq.

He said the government's inability thus far to appoint a defense minister and an interior minister has hampered its ability to make informed decisions about whether to ask the Americans to stay longer.

Perhaps the government's inabilities ought to provide a clue about the wisdom of keeping troops in Iraq. That's a continuing problem in these continuing quagmires: the wide open questions as to what is supposed to be accomplished, and if there are time frames for their completion. These time frames keep turning out not to be time frames.

On Friday, Gates was making himself even more clear:

Some American troops could stay in Iraq for years, well beyond the scheduled withdrawal of all United States forces at the end of 2011, Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates said Friday.

In remarks to American soldiers in Mosul, north of Baghdad, Mr. Gates said that the United States and Iraq would have to negotiate the terms of any American presence in the country beyond this year. But he held out the possibility that it could happen, or at least that he had been thinking of several situations that might keep American forces in Iraq, perhaps indefinitely.

“That would be part of any negotiation, whether it be for a finite period of time, whether it would be negotiated that there be a further ramp-down over a period of two or three years, or whether we would have a continuing advise-and-assist role as we have in a number of countries,” Mr. Gates said.

It's always fascinating, how this administration uses the word "negotiation." Gates clearly wants Iraq to request the extension. That isn't to be negotiated, all the Iraqis have to do is ask, as Gates continues to emphasize, which sounds better than begging. The details will then be discussed, but the huge and once unthinkable concept of the Obama administration further extending the other failed Bush war too is there but for the Iraqi government's asking.

As for the Iraqi opposition?

Influential Shi'ite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr says his supporters will resume their fight against U.S. forces in Iraq if they stay beyond a deadline to withdraw at the end of the year.

A spokesman read out a statement from the cleric Saturday to hundreds of thousands of his followers gathered in Baghdad.

Sadr's Mahdi Army militia battled U.S. forces for years following the U.S. invasion of Iraq, until declaring a cease-fire in 2008.

As for the Iraqi people?

Tens of thousands of demonstrators in eastern Baghdad marked the eighth anniversary of the fall of Saddam Hussein's regime with a protest Saturday against the American troop presence there.

The demonstrators, followers of anti-American Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr, rallied in Mustansriya Square, where they called all U.S troops to withdraw from Iraq at the end of the year.

The protesters carried Iraqi flag and banners, with some chanting "Baghdad is a free country, America get out!" and "No for Occupation, No for America."

As for the American people?

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2011/04/09/964367/-Gates-pushes-to-extend-occupation-of-Iraq-and-tens-of-thousands-of-Iraqis-protest