U.S. Adviser’s Blunt Memo on Iraq: Time ‘to Go Home’

[cal04]

Source: New York Times

A senior American military adviser in Baghdad has concluded in an unusually blunt memo that the Iraqi forces suffer from deeply entrenched deficiencies but are now capable of protecting the Iraqi government, and that it is time “for the U.S. to declare victory and go home.”

Prepared by Col. Timothy R. Reese, an adviser to the Iraqi military’s Baghdad command, the memorandum asserts that the Iraqi forces have array of problems, including corruption, poor management and the inability to resist political pressure from Shiite political parties.

For all of these problems, however, Colonel Reese argues that Iraqi forces are competent enough to hold off Sunni insurgents, Shiite militias and other internal threats to the Iraqi government. Extending the American military presence in Iraq beyond 2010, he argues, will do little to improve the Iraqis’ military performance while fueling a growing resentment.

“As the old saying goes, ‘Guests, like fish, begin to smell after three days.’ ” Colonel Reese wrote. “Since the signing of the 2009 Security Agreement, we are guests in Iraq, and after six years in Iraq, we now smell bad to the Iraqi nose.”

Read more: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/07/31/world/middleeast/31adviser.html?_r=1&hp

---

Text of Colonel Reese’s Memo
Text of memo from Col. Timothy R. Reese, Chief, Baghdad Operations Command Advisory Team, MND-B, Baghdad, Iraq.
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/07/31/world/middleeast/31advtext.html

[No Elephants]

1. Thank you, Colonel Obvious. I am pretty sure our gubbamint has known all that for years, yet we

stay. There must be reasons why we stay. But, I don't mean to pick on Reese.

Thank you, Col. Reese, for giving our gubbamint military cover for leaving, if they choose to leave. I hope that is what you were assigned to do bc that would mean we are really getting ready to leave. About six years too late, but better late than never.

[crickets]

2. "I hope that is what you were assigned to do"

I fervently hope the same, though I have my doubts given the economic interests involved.

[Iowa]

3. "...it is time “for the U.S. to declare victory and go home.”

It is long past time to "go home", but there is no way in hell this is any sort of "victory".