CAMP VICTORY, Iraq — As the commander of U.S. ground forces
in Iraq, Lt. Gen. Charles H. Jacoby Jr. will play a key role in making the
assessments on which the American military will base its final decision on
whether to withdraw all combat forces from Iraq by next August, the goal set by
President Obama. After that, 50,000 U.S. troops will remain to help with
training and logistics until the end of 2011.
The current timetable calls for Gen. Ray Odierno, the
overall commander, to make a recommendation 60 days after crucial Iraqi
elections — due to take place Jan. 16 — on whether it is safe to pull out the
troops. Amid growing concerns the election may be delayed by disputes between
Iraqi politicians, and in the wake of the devastating Oct. 25 bombings that killed
155 people in downtown Baghdad, Jacoby sat down with Tribune Newspapers on
Monday to talk about the factors that will influence the decision.
Question: Are you concerned the elections on which your
withdrawal timetable is based may be delayed? The Iraqi parliament is
deadlocked over an election law, even though the deadline has long since
passed.
Answer: We are watching this very closely. This
parliamentary election is a decisive point in the history of Iraq’s democracy,
and it’s also very important to the United States. We have a stake in their
success. Iraq has had increasingly better elections over time. Of course we
look forward to these elections. And so we’re very concerned we’re past the
date the Iraqis wanted to have an election law, and that every day that goes by
eats into the established date for the election. Iraq has the opportunity to
demonstrate it has a viable and credible democracy, and can be model for the
region. There’s lots of opportunity here and we don’t want to miss these
opportunities by having this election drift.
Q: Would an election delay also delay the plan to withdraw
all U.S. combat forces by August 2010?
A: We do not think we are at the point where we are off our
plan, but of course we are going to watch this very carefully. Any decision to
vary from the plan is a policy decision that won’t take place here. It’s too
soon to say whether a potential delay in the election is a potential delay in
the withdrawal.
Q: What is the minimum time you need after the election to
get all the combat troops out by August?
A: We have it well within our capability to compress or
expand. I would just say, obviously, the longer we move to the right (in terms
of the timeline), the harder it gets, from a logistics standpoint. But we’re
not at that point where we have to make decisions.
Q: So there is some wiggle room within the timetable?
A: The security agreement (between Iraq and the United
States) stipulates end of 2011 that we withdraw all our forces. It is our
strategy that we’ll be down to 50,000 by August 2010, not connected to the
security agreement. We have decision points along the way where we can adjust
if we’re told to. My boss Gen. Odierno will, as the year unfolds, make
recommendations. He’ll base those on conditions, and the election is very
important to us.
Q: What kind of conditions will you be looking at? We
recently had a horrific bombing in downtown Baghdad that killed 155 people.
Would more events like that affect Gen. Odierno’s decision?
A: When he comes to me for that assessment, I’ll talk about
the security environment and the resilience of Iraqi security forces and the
readiness of Iraqi security forces. Of course high-profile attacks like we saw
on the 25th of October are very troubling because of the suffering they bring, and
because they’re indicative of a residual capability among terrorists who have a
mission to discredit the government of Iraq, directly hurt the people of Iraq
and discredit the Iraqi security forces. So they do play a role in the overall
assessment we make of security. I will tell you, in general there are many good
things to point to in terms of overall security. I do see that this attack
represents a targeting strategy of the terrorists, who are trying to get
maximum benefit with the least expenditure of effort. So we see the phenomenon
of overall attacks going down, but the pain and suffering, and the effect
created by a single attack like 25 October, going up. So we will continue to
work with the Iraqi security forces to put pressure on the remaining members of
the terrorist networks. I believe the Iraqi security forces have reacted in a
positive manner to these attacks.
Q: Do you anticipate an increase in violence around the
election?
A: I think we should expect the adversaries of Iraq to use
this period of time as we approach the election, and even during the time
period we seat the government. They can get maximum exposure and opportunity to
create a negative effect, so I think we should expect them to test the Iraqi
security forces.
Q: What is the current troop strength in Iraq and what will
it be for the election?
A: 117,000. It’ll be close to that.
Q: Do you need 117,000 troops going into the election, given
that U.S. troops are no longer in the cities and some of them are sitting on
their bases?
A: Some people might say we’re doing more with less. I would
say we’re doing different with less. We are not doing counterinsurgency in the
cities anymore. We are doing partnered operations throughout the belts around
the major cities and in the vicinity of the borders. We’re doing a lot of work
on civil capacity development and we provide enabling support to Iraqi security
forces, to include, when requested, helping them in the urban areas with aerial
support and reconnaissance, medical logistics and engineering. It’s presence
with a purpose. (There’s) training going on at every level with the Iraqi
security forces. It is a very critical and important role.
Via McClatchy-Tribune News Service.
