WSJ report: U.S., Iraq have agreed on a withdrawal timeline

August 21, 2008

If this front-page article in the Wall Street Journal is right, the Bush administration is poised to do what the president said it would never do — agree to a withdrawal timeline for U.S. combat troops in Iraq.

U.S. and Iraqi negotiators reached agreement on a security deal that calls for American military forces to leave Iraq’s cities by next summer as a prelude to a full withdrawal of combat troops from the country, according to senior American officials.

The draft agreement sets 2011 as the goal date by which U.S. combat troops will leave Iraq, according to Iraqi Deputy Foreign Minister Mohammed al-Haj Humood and other people familiar with the matter. In the meantime, American troops will be leaving cities, towns and other population centers by the summer of 2009, living in bases outside of those areas, according to the draft.

Teams of American and Iraqi negotiators spent months haggling over the deal, which represents a remarkable turnaround from just a few months ago, when talk of timetables and deadlines was routinely dismissed by the Bush administration and other Republicans in Washington.

Senior officials in Washington said the talks have concluded. The deal will be presented to the Bush administration and the government of Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki for formal approval or rejection.

“The talking is done

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,” a U.S. official told the Journal last night. “Now the decision makers choose whether to give it a thumbs up or a thumbs down.”

Some of the details are still a little murky, and obviously, given the complexities, these details will matter.

But Bush, the WSJ reported “is almost certain to accept the agreement.” The layers of Iraqi bureaucracy are more complicated, but there has been strong support throughout the government for a withdrawal timeline.

If the report is accurate, the political implications of this, in the midst of the U.S. presidential election

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, are huge.

Congressional Republicans have spent years dismissing the very idea of a timeline for troop withdrawals. John McCain, in particular, has made this one of his principal attacks against Barack Obama, and even after Maliki personally endorsed Obama’s policy, McCain continued to insist that he, not Iraq’s prime minister, knew what Iraqis want and need.

If Bush accepts a withdrawal timeline, as he now appears ready to do, it will once again throw the chessboard in the air. The Democratic policy will have been accepted by both the democratically-elected Iraqi government and the conservative Republican U.S. president. If McCain and GOP congressional candidates really want to go to voters in the fall arguing that the Bush/Cheney administration believes in a policy of “defeat and retreat,” by all means, they should be encouraged to do just that.

Kevin added a few reasons why this has the potential to be a “big-time game changer.”

* Basic Obama spin: “I’m glad to see that President Bush has finally come around to my view etc. etc.” This ought to be a big win for him: he visits Iraq

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, meets with Nouri al-Maliki, gets Maliki’s endorsement for a near-term troop withdrawal, and then gets to applaud as President Bush signs on.

* Looking ahead, it’s also a big win for Obama if he wins in November. Instead of a bruising congressional battle on withdrawal starting in January, he can just continue along the path Bush has set out. At most he’ll tweak it a bit, which he can do on his own and without expending a lot of political capital.

* This is also good news for Dems in conservative districts, since it eliminates a campaign issue that potentially hurts them.

I don’t doubt McCain will insist, “This was only possible because I was right about the surge!” But the response from Obama to McCain is both simple and devastating: “When it came time for a withdrawal policy

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, Bush and Maliki agreed that my plan was right, and McCain’s plan was wrong.”

Hi Steve,

McClatchy reports the Iraqi govt. are getting ready to throw the Awakening under the bus and declare any Awakening armed militias illegal – possibly as soon as Nov 1st.

If true, then does anyone doubt there will be a return to violence?

If the Bush administration are already committed to a timetable by then, McCain is sunk.

Regards, C

  • The WarProfit Machine is not concerned in the slightest. With McWar in office, the happy days will roll on and on. A change in venue might be salubrious, and even more lucrative.

  • McCain: Maliki disagrees with Maliki on the timetable

    Reporter: Huh?

    McCain: I know what Maliki wants and agrees with me not Maliki.

    Reporter: whaaaa?

    McCain: (cutting him off) Listen I know war and know how to win wars and Maliki is fully aware of this fact. And this is why he agrees with me instead of himself. He understands the consequences. That, my friends, is straight talk.

    Reporter: I still don’t understand…

    McCain: I was right about the surge and Obama was not. Obama hates America (etc, etc, etc..…………………)

  • cernig

    Checkout Kirkuk.

    That’s a tinderbox waiting for someone to do something stupid. Which, btw, people have a surprising way of acheiving stupid.

  • Time table or not, this move reflects the ability of the US to sustain troop strength in Iraq without seriously weakening it in the long term. All rhetoric aside, this is the likely outcome for whomever reaches the White House. The end of the rope is the end.
    Both sides will claim victory as the large internal conflicts in Iraq remain unresolved.

  • John ‘Zinger’ McC*nt is going to argue that this is his timeline, not Obama’s, and that McC*nt knows when we can leave with victory and honor while Obama’s pre-Surge opposition meant leaving in defeat. So of course Obama should get NO credit for this timetable/timeline.

    And of course, in case you’ve forgotten, nothing stops McC*nt from claiming he supported a policy (say, the new GI bill) which in fact he opposed all along.

    Remember, only McC*nt and LIEberman have the wisdom to know when America can leave Iraq and the authority to say it is okay to leave (whenever).

    And one final thought. al Maliki only wants us tucked into our bases so he can start his own civil war/ethnic cleansing campaign on his terms.

  • Noun, verb, the Surge.

    “My friends the surge has saved Iraq from itself and surly, from us. My friends this illuminates just how poor my opponent’s judgment really is when he can not admit that the surge won the Iraq war by winning it. My friends, my friends, ah, where was I? Oh, yeah, my friends my opponent won’t admit how hard it is to run for Prisoner of War of the United States…

  • What is extremely sad and ironic is that the greatest potential for fostering a democratic friend in the Middle East was sitting right next door in IRAN! But because of the foresight and such good judgment from such seers as John McCain, we made war on Iraq! Brilliant! And as our attention was diverted to Iraq about 5 more potential wars fester in the fog.

    My friends, is this the kind of judgment we need in the White House?

  • Expect to hear not just about the “surge” but also to hear McCain repeatedly bring up the strawman “conditions on the ground” argument. Ad nauseum. Or at least repeat the phrase over and over again (since it’s a meaningless strawman if he actually makes an argument around it he’ll just get confused).

    Honestly, while this underscores Obama’s foreign policy judgment, I fully expect him to throw it away by making a stupid VP pick that attempts to “buttress his lack of foreign policy experience”. If he picks a Biden or a Bayh or anyone else that can be perceived as providing more foreign policy experience to his administration, then he sends up a flare that he doesn’t trust his own foreign policy judgment (despite being right – repeatedly – when these other guys were wrong) and neutralizes his advantage.

  • Republicans are incapable of admitting mistakes (no timetables for withdrawal!) and will simply say, since we stated “no timetables!”, we had the surge which worked and we won the war and there’s no more reason for military forces to stay there. It’s that simple and we can all see it coming down the ‘pike.

  • Just watching Condoleeza on BBC, I really have to chuckle every time these comedians say how well the surge worked. They speak about the surge as though it was a miracle, these dummies should say it the way it was, more troops, which if my tired brain remembers correctly, they were firing the military generals who said they needed more troops at the beginning.Of course they do not mention the payments of $300.00 per month each to the militants to stop them from fighting us, and how about Al Sadr’s ceasefire (temp). Then there are the walls all over Bagdad. No – it is the magical surge!!!!!!

  • If Obama doesn’t pick a woman – either Hillary Clinton (best choice) or Kathleen Sibelius (sp?) – I really think he’ll lose in November. He needs to get the Dem base voters enthused and on board (independent older women, older voters in general, working class Dems in Ohio, Pennsylvania, Michigan, Wisconsin, etc., disgruntled Hillary supporters, other independents) – and turn around his shrinking poll numbers with each of these groups – the demographic and Democratic base who have the track record of actually going to the polls and voting in presidential elections.

    If the Obama campaign ignores or minimizes the Bradley Effect, or is counting on a big turnout of first-time voting students and minorities (whose turnout always disappoints historically) – I think we’re looking at President McCain.

    That doesn’t slow my resolve and effort to get Obama elected, it makes me work harder – like many of the other county Democrats here in Lawrence County, Indiana – most of who voted for Clinton in the primaries.

  • Oops – sorry for the off-topic post. I thought I was on another thread. Need more coffee.

    Anyhow, I’ll post my “logic” on VP choice where it belongs. doubtful can tell me where he thinks it belongs in 3 … 2 … 1 …

  • Rielle Lovechild said: “If Obama doesn’t pick a woman – either Hillary Clinton (best choice) or Kathleen Sibelius (sp?) – I really think he’ll lose in November.”

    On Hardball last night they were talking about a solid 11% of the electorate that are Clinton (bill and hill) supporters. 11 fricking percent! Hell, I’m one of those and I can’t believe the number is still that high!

    Sorry, I think that Obama is going to have to accept Hillary on the ticket to win in November. I thought it was Bill Richardson (maybe I still do, because I can believe Obama will try to fight through this problem) but Hillary is a far easier way to win.

    And if Hillary can’t look McC*nt in the eye and call him a liar, who can? If you want a VP to be the first surragate to attack McC*nt, no one does it better than a Clinton.

  • Geez people, haven’t you heard? We’re at war with Russia now!

    Just got back from a meeting with a client who is a pretty nice and relatively smart guy. At some point he sort of blurted out that “we’re at war with Russia.” That’s all the republicans need to stay in the Whitehouse — the ridiculous misconception that the whole Georgia mess was somehow really about the US and Russia squaring off.

    One possible reason? There are plenty of stupid fuckers who think we’re talking about the Georgia that’s north of Florida. And they’ll be damned if Saddam Putin’s going to march his Pinko Muslim Nazis onto ‘merican soil! “These colors don’t run! There, Osama von Putin! Does that blow your mind!”

  • It seems clear to me that Bush has seized on the timeline and negotiations with Iran as a way to take the wind out of Obama’s sails…if these issues are settled…then it makes these issues moot, whether or not Obama was right.

  • On a related note, don’t miss McClatchy’s take on “A key pillar of the U.S. strategy to pacify Iraq…”

    …[T]he army was considering setting a Nov. 1 deadline for those militia members who hadn’t been absorbed into the security forces or given civilian jobs to give up their weapons. After that, they’d be arrested, he said.

    Some militia members say that such a move would force them into open warfare with the government again.

    “If they disband us now, I will tell you that history will show we will go back to zero,” said Mullah Shahab al Aafi, a former emir, or leader, of insurgents in Diyala province who’s the acting commander of 24,000 Sons of Iraq there, 11,000 of whom are on the U.S. payroll. “I will not give up my weapons. I will never give them up, and I will carry my weapon again. If it is useless to talk to the government, I will be forced to carry my weapons and my pistol.”

    The conflict over the militias underscores how little has changed in Iraq in the past year despite the drop in violence, which American politicians often attribute to the temporary increase of U.S. troops in Iraq that ended in July.

  • “Combat troops” by 2011? What does that mean? How many non combat troops are there, and what are they going to do? What is to become of the permanent bases? The details are sketchy in the latest AP report: http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080821/ap_on_re_mi_ea/us_iraq;_ylt=AixVTF1jAeBiIY5GvPJyk66s0NUE

    Seems to me McCain gets the advantage here. It’s all based on the success of the surge, if there is a major withdrawal. McCain was in favor, Obama wasn’t. I just don’t see how you spin it. How do the American people see it any other way? The surge was a success, we are leaving, not in an arbitrary sixteen months, but a measured, conditions on the ground 36 months for combat troops and whatever else comes out of the agreement. And I bet there will be some remaining troop presence. The entire agreement revolves around the “success of the surge.” Victory, McCain will proclaim.

    It takes (if a deal goes through), the war off the table as an issue. Who does that favor? It’s really complex, and ironic. Obama was the candidate who called for a timetable, but the polls show the public trusts McCain on how to handle Iraq.

    Why is Bush doing this? For his legacy, I imagine. He doesn’t want someone else getting the credit for bringing the troops home. It’s really ironic. I don’t think he, or the Republicans in general, believed the surge would end the war. He’s simply capitalizing on the fact that apparently, it did, to everyone’s astonishment. He expected to hand over a horrible mess to his successor, but instead, relative peace broke out in Iraq long before they expected.

    Amazing.

  • So what did we win this week that we didn’t win last week, last month, last year, three years ago enabling the Bushies to resolve this war with some “honor?” We spent billions more and had more troops come home in caskets, that’s all.

    The right wingnuts should be tripping all over themselves with apoplexy. Let’s hear Kristol, Krauthammer. Limbaugh and the other mouthpieces spin this into a victory for Bush and his third-term compatriot McCain.

  • Whoopee; big deal. That gives the Bush crowd three more full years to get control of Iraqi oil. I don’t know why there was such a flap about a timeline for withdrawal, if all they needed to do was push it so far off into the future that it basically gives them everything they wanted anyway. If they can’t manage to stamp an eagle on the Iraqi National Oil Company in three years, they ain’t ever gonna do it.

  • If the Bush administration has entered into this agreement process with Iraq make no mistake; he is doing it because it will somehow benefit McCain, the GOP and big oil. This is in no way a victory for Obama. It’s supposed to feel like one now, but they will somehow use this to tear him apart.

  • The only surprise to me will be if they do this in August, I was certain they’d sign it in October as part of trying to manipulate the election. It’s basically the same as Kissinger’s “Peace is at hand” in the 1972 election.

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