http://www.nytimes.com/2009/07/31/world/middleeast/31adviser.html?_r=1&ref=worldU.S. Adviser’s Blunt Memo on Iraq: Time ‘to Go Home’
By MICHAEL R. GORDON
Published: July 30, 2009
WASHINGTON — A senior American military adviser in Baghdad has concluded in an unusually blunt memo that the Iraqi forces suffer from deeply entrenched deficiencies but are now capable of protecting the Iraqi government, and that it is time “for the U.S. to declare victory and go home.”
Prepared by Col. Timothy R. Reese, an adviser to the Iraqi military’s Baghdad command, the memorandum asserts that the Iraqi forces have array of problems, including corruption, poor management and the inability to resist political pressure from Shiite political parties.
For all of these problems, however, Colonel Reese argues that Iraqi forces are competent enough to hold off Sunni insurgents, Shiite militias and other internal threats to the Iraqi government. Extending the American military presence in Iraq beyond 2010, he argues, will do little to improve the Iraqis’ military performance while fueling a growing resentment.
“As the old saying goes, ‘Guests, like fish, begin to smell after three days.’ ” Colonel Reese wrote. “Since the signing of the 2009 Security Agreement, we are guests in Iraq, and after six years in Iraq, we now smell bad to the Iraqi nose.”
The memo continued, referring to the Iraq Security Forces: “The massive partnering efforts of U.S. combat forces with I.S.F. isn’t yielding benefits commensurate with the effort and is now generating its own opposition. We should declare our intentions to withdraw all U.S. military forces from Iraq by August 2010. This would not be a strategic paradigm shift, but an acceleration of existing U.S. plans by some 15 months.”
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