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US Troop Level in Iraq Hits 5,000
In 2011, Obama shocked Pentagon leaders by pulling all US troops out of Iraq.
American military officials had said they wanted a “residual” force of as many as tens of thousands of American troops to remain in Iraq past 2011 as an insurance policy against any violence. Those numbers were scaled back, but the expectation was that at least about 3,000 to 5,000 American troops would remain…
Intelligence assessments that Iraq was not at great risk of slipping into chaos in the absence of American forces were a factor in the decision, an American official said.
More recently, with ISIS still controlling Mosul and vast swathes of Iraqi and Syrian territory, Obama has slowly been sending in more troops. Just today he approved 600 more American fighters to be shipped to the sandbox, bringing the total number back to a familiar figure.
The announcement means that there will soon be 5,000 American troops in Iraq, seven years after the Obama administration withdrew all American troops from the country.
Many military experts warned that Iraq could quickly slip back into chaos if we pulled out too quickly. If Obama had simply left 5,000 troops in Iraq instead of yanking all of them out, would ISIS even exist?
Published in Military
That’s not actually an argument. You’re not doing anything to refute what I said.
This. I’ve never understood why anyone thinks government by poll numbers is a good thing.
Hey! I have an idea.
Obama’s poll numbers show he has an approval rating of over 50%. Why doesn’t he just stay in office? He has a phone and a pen. I bet he could figure out how to make it stick. Because it’s what the people want, right?
After all, look at the alternatives . . . ..
This is what happens when you something you are elected to do but you do it incompetently. We are about to experience whole lot more examples of this over the next four years who ever wins the Presidency.
And most importantly, there was no willingness by national leadership to make the case. The simple reality is that by 2004 the Democrats gave up on the war, rediscovered that when a Republican is the Commander in Chief that they are supposed to be pacifists, and then committed themselves to withdrawal at any cost. Bush was able to get sufficient support for the surge by making the case; Obama will simply never make the case and then he will point to the polls as his excuse to take no action. The man is simply not capable of leadership.
Actually Eisenhower got Korea which was the product of horribly unpopular war that sent Truman’s second term into the toilet popularity wise. However Eisenhower accepted the fact of the war handled the aftermath like a pro and we have an democracy and ally in South Korea that has benefited the entire world. We still have a North Korea to deal with because of Truman’s mishandling of the War but Eisenhower took an unpopular war and made something good out of it.
Obama took a stable productive Iraq that was the verge of society change to our benefit, mishandled it and threw it all away. Whatever people thought of Iraq that is not really want they wanted to happen and Obama if he had been a better man would not have let it happen.
But at that point Iraq was pacified. I recall some statistic that non-combat casualties were exceeding combat casualties by 2009-2010. People perceived Iraq as having been won, albeit at a higher price than they wanted to pay. Iraq was increasingly fading from public awareness precisely because the surge had worked. A continued mission would have been on the same order as our continued presence in Korea, another war that people were exhausted of by 1953.
So what if Bush negotiated an agreement in 2007-08; if circumstances change then work out a new agreement. It’s what adults do. Some sort of arrangement could have been worked out by serious people.
Exactly. News coverage died as our success multiplied and there was good news to report. Once that happened the media lost all interest in Iraq and that was one of the reasons the Iraq war remained so unpopular. Very, very few wanted Obama to bungle the war as badly as he did. There some deeply invested in Iraq war being a disaster that wanted that happen but they were mercifully few. Unfortunately one of them was our President.
The public mood in January of 2009 is irrelevant when you consider that the pull out decision wasn’t finalized until the second half of 2011.
War Fighting 100:
Once you pay the price in blood and treasure you better damn win.
It is no surprise that Pres. Obama has started sending troops back over there. Thanks for the update though.
I wasn’t even an NCO while serving in the military and I understand the strategic position the we enjoyed in the Middle East before BHO. We owned it and could have continued to own it. Now the entire region is on fire thanks to HRC and BHO. This is what happens when you led from behind, you look like one.
Iraq was a conquered nation. The victor writes the agreement, at the point of a gun if necessary. It’s been this way forever.
……5,000 troops with no status of forces agreement. Obama-Clinton loser policy comes full circle. And now we have Isis.
Max Boot has some important relevant information with regard to the Status of Forces agreement.
He is not out yet. He may yet decide to stay. Who would stop him?
Why are we in Iraq or anyway for that matter much less fighting wars. The whole point of electing Obama is that he is the great communicator. All he has to do is speak to both sides and universal joy and peace would occur. So bring our people home and send Obama to do his stuff.
Simple inference.
Reagan was smart enough to avoid open-ended US deployments. Most of his offensive military actions were punitive strikes. The Invasion of Grenada was done is less than two months. The exception is Beirut, and we all know what happened there. Reagan called it the worst mistake of his presidency.
As far as Eisenhower goes, he went to Korea, saw the lay of the land, realized the war was unwinnable and ended it. And despite French calls for aid, he knew enough to stay the hell out of Vietnam too.
Except that ran counter to years of Bush administration rhetoric that it was not an occupation, the Iraqis were in control, that America is not an empire, that we were liberators, and so forth.
And that rhetoric was necessary. Things would have been worse if the message was “We conquered you. We make the rules now.” It’s not only unAmerican (as is any childish talk of “taking the oil”) but it would have been imprudent and counterproductive.
I must have missed the negotiation of the “new agreement” (SOFA) that now permits 5000 ground troops. We needed a SOFA before. But, not this time?
As imprudent and counterproductive as ISIS? BTW who was the child that brought up taking oil?
@fredcole Which is why we still have troops in South Korea to this day?
I said he ended the war. You know, by negotiating an armistice. Please take note that American troops aren’t still dying there.
@fredcole. Yes Eisenhower had a very similar situation to Obama. Korea was a mess and Eisenhower ended the fighting and left our troops in place to keep the peace. In Obama’s case Bush had ended the fighting and Americans were dying there at the same rate they do in peace time training. Instead of staying the course and keeping the peace Obama withdrew for stupid ideological reasons and the Middle East burst into flames again. If Obama had followed Eisenhower’s example we would not have withdrawn all troops from Iraq. So using Eisenhower as an example of what Obama did is kind of rich since they acted completely opposite of each other.
This comment is problematic.
2. I don’t consider it “stupid ideological reasons” for Obama, after running and having won on a platform of ending the Iraq War, following through with the withdrawal negotiated by the Bush administration.
3. Nor is it “stupid ideological reasons” to not insist on staying in Iraq in perpetuity despite a lack of public will to continue a disastrous war. Unfortunately, he didn’t have the wisdom or the will to stay the hell out.
4. The Middle East did not “burst into flames” because of Barack Obama. At no point in my life has the Middle East not be in flames.
What, pray tell, were those “bigger fish” that needed frying?
I should have thought that there were no fish bigger for a president than a war and the lives of American soldiers and the deaths and maimings that had purchased the state of relative quiet in Iraq.
And, besides, although President Bush did lead the country into war, almost the whole Congress supported his doing so, including Hillary the Prevaricator.
Obama had to fight his true enemy, the GOP, conservative, Tea Party coalition. Not a bunch of rebel Islamist that he has some sympathy for.