Gen. Ray Odierno - Tag Search

The military is drawing up plans to delay the U.S. withdrawal from Iraq, according to the Washington Post. I'm staunchly in the "withdraw on time" camp -- but (as I mentioned on Twitter yesterday) I'm honestly not too concerned about these reports. First, the backstory:

But Army Gen. Ray Odierno, the top U.S. commander in Iraq, said Monday that he had briefed officials in Washington in the past week about possible contingency plans.

Odierno declined to describe the plans in detail and said he was optimistic they would not be necessary. But he said he was prepared to make the changes "if we run into problems" in the coming months.

This is where I always like to point out that the Pentagon has a plan on the books for invading Canada. That's why you have military planners: to prepare for contingencies. And with all the talk in recent months about how the U.S. should delay its withdrawal, I'm not surprised Odierno has a plan for that scenario.

Another ominous sign for the legitimacy of Iraq's March 7 election: The National Dialogue Front, the secular Sunni party headed by Salah al-Mutlak, has decided to withdraw from the vote.

A statement from Haidar al-Mulla, a spokesman for the party, linked the withdrawal to recent statements by Gen. Ray Odierno and Christopher Hill, who blamed the de-Ba'athification crisis on Iranian influence. "The Iraqi Front for National Dialogue cannot continue in a political process run by a foreign agenda," Mulla said.

The Washington Post has 600 words of hand-wringing conventional wisdom on its editorial page this morning: Syria is bad, Syria will always be bad, and engagement with Damascus is pointless.

I don't agree with the overall conclusion -- I agree with Andrew Tabler that engagement could bring a meaningful change in U.S.-Syrian relations (though I take issue with many other points in his essay) -- and the editorial also plays loose with the facts. Here's the most egregious example, referring to Syrian president Bashar al-Assad.

He has promised to check suicide bombers bound for Iraq but has never done so.

I guess Fred Hiatt and the gang over at WaPo don't have access to Lexis-Nexis? Or Google?

"Ahmed Chalabi and Ali Faysal al-Lami... clearly are influenced by Iran," Gen. Ray Odierno said last night. "We have direct intelligence that tells us that."

Surprisingly blunt language from Odierno, the commander of U.S. forces in Iraq, who was speaking last night at a forum sponsored by the Institute for the Study of War. Odierno said the U.S. has evidence of several meetings in Tehran between Chalabi, Lami, and Iranian officials, including at least one person on the U.S. terror watch list.

As we reported yesterday, U.S. vice president Joe Biden is in Baghdad meeting with Iraqi officials. Two posts this morning on his visit: First, an assessment of the trip from Biden's national security adviser, Antony Blinken; second, reactions from Iraqi media, which have been pretty brutal.

Biden had dinner last night with Christopher Hill, the U.S. ambassador in Iraq, and Gen. Ray Odierno, the commander of U.S. forces in Iraq. He'll hold individual meetings today with Iraqi prime minister Nouri al-Maliki, parliament speaker Ayad al-Sammaraie, and president Jalal Talabani; and then a larger meeting of lower-level officials, including deputy prime ministers Rafi al-Issawi and Roush Shaways.

Iraq's January 21 election appears headed for an almost certain delay -- which means Pentagon officials will likely step up their calls for a delayed withdrawal from Iraq.

Regular readers are probably familiar with the backstory, so you can skip down to the analysis. But if you're new to the excitement that is the Iraqi election law debate: Iraq's parliament passed an election law earlier this month to great fanfare (and congratulations from President Obama).

But last week, Tariq al-Hashimi -- one of Iraq's vice presidents, and a Sunni Arab -- vetoed the law. Al-Hashimi thought it didn't do enough to protect the rights of the two million Iraqi refugees (many of them Sunnis) living abroad, mostly in Syria and Jordan.

Remember all the talk last month about a "rift" between Christopher Hill and Gen. Ray Odierno? Josh Rogin over at Foreign Policy talks to a bunch of anonymous military and diplomatic officials and concludes that it's really a cultural gap between the State Department and the Pentagon.

"State has a respect for sovereignty and institutional relations," one official explained. "DOD is much more activist and hands on in pretty much every area. Their attitude is if there's a problem you get in there and do what you can to fix it."

In other words, Defense wants to aggressively push the Iraqi government to resolve certain issues -- elections, for one -- while State prefers a more hands-off approach.

No surprises here: The Iraqi parliament failed, yet again, to pass an election law.

Rod Nordland reports in the New York Times that the parliament has declared itself at a stalemate. The parliament speaker, Ayad al-Samarraie, adjourned the assembly until Sunday. Kirkuk is still the main issue.

Iraq's electoral commission says it needs 90 days to prepare for the vote. We're already inside that mark: When parliament returns on Sunday, the scheduled January 16 election will be just 83 days away.

Iraqi prime minister Nouri al-Maliki is in Washington today. He's scheduled to meet with Obama at 10:40 a.m., according to the White House. High on their agenda, I'm sure, will be the status of Iraq's election law: Elections are scheduled for January 16, but parliament still hasn't passed the law that will organize those elections.

Anthony Shadid that they tried to bring the law to a vote yesterday -- and failed. For the second time.

One quick thought on Tom Ricks' post about an Odierno-Hill rift. I have zero inside information about their relationship, so I can't assess Tom's basic claim (that the two men don't get along). But I think his criticism is a little misguided on one point.

Does Gen. Odierno have a problem with Chris Hill, the U.S. ambassador to Iraq? Foreign Policy's Tom Ricks thinks so. Ricks echoes some of the criticisms Robert Kaplan raised last month, plus raises a few new ones.

Hill denies the report to FP's Josh Rogin.

12:26 p.m.: Rep. Mike Coffman (R-Colo.) wants to know how de-Baathification is going, because it "caused a lot of problems" with Sunni Arabs. Odierno says the parliament "needs to go back and pass some more legislation" to loosen up the de-Baathification laws.

Coffman then asks about Shi'ite militias. Odierno:

You don't see militias that control areas. What you have now is militant groups that don't control areas, but conduct attacks for different reasons... they continue to be a threat, but... their influence has been significantly reduced as to what it was from 2007 and 2008.

Odierno also says Iran is providing less assistance -- but more targeted assistance -- to those Shi'a groups.

Gen. Ray Odierno, the commander of U.S. forces in Iraq, is testifying on Capitol Hill this morning; we'll be live-blogging the hearing.

According to prepared testimony released before the hearing, the U.S. plans to withdraw about 4,000 troops from Iraq next month. That's a small fraction of the 124,000 troops currently in Iraq, of course.

Odierno will also talk about the reduced number of contractors working in Iraq: There are 115,000 contractors working there now, down from 149,000 in January. Al-Arabiya has more on what to expect from his testimony.

Also today, a sad and bizarre story out of Afghanistan: A girl was killed by a box of leaflets dropped by a British plane. The box should have broken up in mid-air, according to British officials.

I'm curious: Why is anyone dropping leaflets on a country that is largely illiterate? What's the point?

Two conflicting reports on Iraq this morning that illustrate how bizarre the U.S. position there has become.

First, the Washington Post reports that Iraqi prime minister Nouri al-Maliki wants to hold a referendum on kicking out U.S. troops before the 2011 deadline in the status-of-forces agreement. The vote may not happen -- but if it does, it seems likely that a majority of Iraqis would support it. The U.S. occupation remains deeply unpopular.

Remember, al-Maliki billed the June 30 withdrawal of U.S. troops from Iraqi cities as the day of glory and a "great victory" for Iraqis.

A U.S. military team is in Damascus today for talks with the Syrian government. They're focused mainly on Syria's efforts to stop insurgents from crossing the border into Iraq. The Obama administration views that as a sort of benchmark: If Damascus cracks down on insurgents, Washington will respond with positive gestures.

Gen. Ray Odierno, the commander of U.S. forces in Iraq, said last month that there has already been a "significant decrease" in insurgents from Syria.