Candace

Talmadge

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April 10, 2008

William E. Odom: Iraq Testimony from a Different General

We’ve heard it all before.

Despite all the hot air it generated, testimony on Iraq this week before the Senate Armed Services Committee offered little in the way of real news or useful insight. Hiding behind Army Gen. David Petraeus’s medals and uniform, President Bush sent his proxy to Capitol Hill to repeat the administration’s threadbare mantras yet another time.

Just six days earlier, however, a different high-ranking U.S. military officer spoke to the senators – Lt. Gen. William E. Odom, now retired. “The surge is prolonging instability, not creating the conditions for unity as the president claims,” his testimony began.

“The decline in violence reflects a dispersion of power to dozens of local strong men who distrust the government and occasionally fight among themselves,” Odom explained. “Thus the basic military situation is far worse because of the proliferation of armed groups under local military chiefs who follow a proliferating number of political bosses.

“This can hardly be called greater military stability, much less progress toward political consolidation, and to call it fragility that needs more time to become success is to ignore its implications.”

Persuading the Sunnis not to shoot at U.S. troops comes at a high financial toll. “ . . . Our new Sunni friends insist on being paid for their loyalty,” Odom pointed out. “I have heard, for example, a rough estimate that the cost of in one area of about 100 square kilometers is $250,000 per day. And periodically they threaten to defect unless their fees are increased.”

In other words, the short-sighted tactic of paying one faction not to shoot at U.S. troops is setting Iraq up for long-term fighting between multiple factions by giving one side the funds needed to buy arms and pay militia members.

Odom also made hash of claims that Al Qaeda will have a staging area in Iraq for further attacks against the United States if we withdraw our entire military presence.

“The Sunnis will soon destroy Al Qaeda if we leave Iraq,” Odom said. “The Kurds do not allow them in their region, and the Shiites, like the Iranians, detest Al Qaeda. To understand why, one need only take note of the Al Qaeda public diplomacy campaign over the past year or so on Internet blogs. They implore the United States to bomb and invade Iran and destroy this apostate Shiite regime. 

“As an aside, it gives me pause to learn that our vice president and some members of Congress are aligned with Al Qaeda on spreading the war to Iran.” 

That should give all of us pause. Odom’s entire testimony is 180 degrees opposite of what we keep hearing from clueless pundits on all sides and nightly news broadcasts.

So what do we do now? As a first step, Odom urged withdrawal from Iraq of all U.S. troops rapidly but in good order. “Only that step can break the paralysis now gripping U.S. strategy in the region,” he said.

Next, he advised the senators, is to establish a new aim of regional stability, “not a meaningless victory in Iraq.” To make progress toward that stability, however, the United States must alter its approach to Iran.

“If the president merely renounced his threat of regime change by force, that could prompt Iran to lessen its support of Taliban groups in Afghanistan,” Odom pointed out. “Iran detests the Taliban and supports them only because they will kill more Americans in Afghanistan as retaliation in event of a U.S. attack on Iran.

“Iran’s policy toward Iraq would have to change radically as we withdraw,” Odom continued. “It cannot want instability there. Iraqi Shiites are Arabs and they know that Persians look down on them. Cooperation between them has its limits.”

Odom concluded: “Naysayers insist that our withdrawal will create regional instability. This confuses cause with effect. Our forces in Iraq and our threat to change Iran’s regime are making the region unstable. Those who link instability with a U.S. withdrawal have it exactly backwards. Our ostrich strategy of keeping our heads buried in the sands of Iraq has done nothing but advance our enemies’ interest.”

No one has said it better. If we possess even a straw of wisdom, we will follow this general’s advice.

© 2008 North Star Writers Group. May not be republished without permission.

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