02/19/09 – Gareth Porter – The Scott Horton Show

All right, everybody, it's Antiwar Radio, I'm Scott Horton, introducing Dr. Gareth Porter.
He's an independent historian and journalist, writes regularly for IPS News, you can also find him at the American Prospect, the Huffington Post, and of course at Antiwar.com slash Porter.
Welcome back to the show, I should say.
Gareth, how are you?
Thanks again, Scott.
I'm fine.
Good to talk to you, and I was explaining to the audience on the show earlier today that if I was Mr. White and you worked for me at the Daily Planet, that basically you're already writing about whatever I would have you write about.
If I was the boss of you, it's always whatever I'm interested in you're covering, and the most important stories you're- That's because we both have the same interests, that's all.
We seem to weigh these questions pretty much the same way and come up with the same subjects each time, whether it's the propaganda about Iran or what's going on inside Iraq, the relationship in this case between the White House and the Pentagon, etc.
You're always right on the ball, it's always great to have your insight.
And so now let's get to it.
Three articles in a row now on this theme, which is that General Petraeus and General Odierno have gotten too big for their britches, and although you say Barack Obama really does intend to get American forces out of Iraq in 16 months, they are trying to obstruct that and in fact create a narrative that says that anything bad that happens, it'll be his fault, the stab in the back kind of narrative.
So I guess basically if you can help flesh that out and take us back to the beginning here.
Petraeus is the head of CENTCOM, Odierno the highest level general in Iraq, and they've got this dispute with the President.
What do you really know about it, Gareth?
Right, well, you know, to recapitulate very briefly the storyline here, you go back to the period of the election campaign when Barack Obama was already talking about the necessity for the United States and his desire for the withdrawal of all U.S. combat forces from Iraq within the first 16 months of his presidency, and the people at the U.S. military command in Baghdad, that is to say at that point it was Petraeus, but soon after that it would be Odierno, were obviously upset by this upstart of a politician basically upsetting their apple cart and suggesting that there would be really a complete withdrawal of all combat troops within that period of time.
They were really hoping that U.S. combat troops would remain on hand in Iraq for quite some time and of course this was before you had the demand by al-Maliki and the Iraqi government for the withdrawal of all U.S. troops, not just combat troops, but all U.S. troops by the end of 2011.
That of course put another monkey wrench into the plan that the U.S. military command had there.
In any case, the important point is that they did in fact expect to be able to remain well beyond 2011 with a large contingent of combat as well as non-combat troops, and here's Obama basically threatening to bring all those troops back within 16 months.
Now by the spring you have to bear in mind that when Obama began to win the primaries the U.S. command was beginning to worry about this, and we know that Jack Keane, the sort of eminence grise behind the surge policy of the Bush administration and basically the person who was responsible for Petraeus becoming the top commander in Iraq in 2007.
A retired general, a man outside the chain of command.
A retired general outside the chain of command, but extremely influential with the White House and particularly with Dick Cheney.
He worked through Dick Cheney to get things done and really to manipulate, outside the chain of command, the policy of the Bush administration.
So what I was going to say is that Jack Keane was particularly concerned about Obama, and we know from Woodward's book that he went to the White House and to Gates in April 2008 and was saying, you know, we need to take action here to preempt, my word, not his, but basically what he was saying, we have to preempt a democratic administration here pulling out U.S. troops early in its administration.
And so in order to try to avert that we need to make sure Petraeus stays in the game, that he's not transferred out of the region, and so he was the one who was saying Petraeus should become CENTCOM commander so he could be exercising continued influence on the policy throughout the Middle East, including Iraq.
And of course then he pushed for Odierno to become the replacement for Petraeus as top commander in Iraq, and so you had the team there that was going to be continuing to push hard for a longer U.S. troop commitment in Iraq and in opposition to Obama's position.
And that's why I think you have this tension continuing then through the election beyond basically Obama being inaugurated, you have this very interesting meeting then January 21st, the day after...
Well now, hold on just a moment there.
Before we get to his relationship with these same generals who, as you say, decided a year ago that they had to basically trap Obama if he was going to be the winner into going by their policy, before we get to the particulars of what's been happening since inauguration day or since even election day, I'm kind of confused, I've been confused about Obama's honesty in saying he wants to get the combat troops out.
Because of course he doesn't say what a normal person would say, which is get us out of there.
Instead he says combat forces, and of course we've read in the paper for going on a year now that combat forces can mean whatever they want.
There's still 150-something thousand private contractors, some of them mercenaries, some of them support personnel, and there are tens of thousands of troops there.
And I guess it was, I don't know, maybe early last summer they said, well, you know, combat troops doesn't mean counter-terrorism forces, and it doesn't mean the people at the embassy, and it doesn't mean force protection for the counter-terrorism forces or the forces at the embassy.
And it seemed like even if he's saying he wants out in 16 months, that doesn't even really mean anything.
I'm glad you've pinpointed that issue, that question, because this is obviously something that I was concerned about as well, when I read back into the period of the election campaign and saw that statement by Obama.
I think you have to understand two things.
One, that this statement was made certainly before the pressure from the Iraqi government for a complete withdrawal of U.S. troops.
And once that pressure bore fruit in the text of the U.S.
-Iraqi Withdrawal Agreement, as the Iraqis call it, not the SOFA, and that was a clear-cut commitment which the United States agreed to and signed in November of 2008, you find that Obama changed his position.
I mean, there's no longer any idea that the U.S. is going to have counter-terrorism combat troops in Iraq.
Obviously, they expect there are going to be counter-terror troops in the region, but not in Iraq.
And there was a change of wording on the website that reflected that.
Well, please forgive me for being so cynical, but I'm looking at a country, ours, which stole another one, basically, fair and square, and our government, it seems like the establishment in this country means to keep it, hell or high water.
The idea that all the bases are going to be closed down, what about the embassy that they've built that's the size of Vatican City?
They're really going to leave and let that become the Museum of American Atrocities there?
Well, I mean, this is, the Iraqi government is going to demand that they do that.
I mean, this is already under something that has been explicitly demanded by the Iraqi government.
Are they really in a position to demand that, or is that just posturing to try to shore up their position, which is essentially collaborators?
I've been making the argument for, as you know, for a number of months, that the Iraqi government is, in fact, far more able to make its own decisions on national security matters and on political matters than the U.S. government and the U.S. military have been giving them credit for for quite some time, and I think it's beginning to sink in that that's the case.
So, Gareth, if I had magic powers and I could just somehow take all American forces, contractors and everybody else out of Iraq and put them all at Fort Hood, Texas, somewhere where they can sit and train all day, then the national government of Iraq, the Maliki government, the parliamentary structure, and et cetera, that have been set up by the American occupation would remain?
It's not going to suddenly collapse.
No.
It's not going to happen.
So, I mean, if there's ever been an actual turning point in this war, then that really is one, isn't it?
Well, I think that's been happening gradually ever since the Shiite government took power in 2005, and then again in 2006, you know, began to consolidate its power.
I remember, you know, the real turning point in this war, which we're just now beginning to get an inkling of, and I mentioned it in my story this past week, is what happened in 2006, the real sort of civil war between the Sunnis and Shiites, the Battle of Baghdad.
And this was a war that was touched off by the bombing by the Sunnis, whether it was al-Qaeda or the Sunni insurgents is still not clear.
Some people think that it was al-Qaeda, some think it was the Sunni insurgents.
But in any case, the Sunnis bombed the Golden Mosque, and this was a signal for the Muqtada al-Sadr's forces, the Jaish al-Mahdi, the Mahdi army, to go to war against the Sunnis in Baghdad.
And they mercilessly, they carried out ethnic cleansing, essentially, to push the Sunnis further and further out of Baghdad.
And by the end of 2006, there was a very decisive victory that the Shiites had won over the Sunnis in Baghdad.
And the Sunnis were so much weakened by that battle, by the loss of their geographical position in Baghdad, and by the loss of their guerrilla forces as well, that they had to make a decision then, because they faced two major enemies, the Americans and the Shiite militias, and for that matter, the Shiite government and its security forces.
And they had to make a decision.
They couldn't face both at the same time, and they made peace with the United States because of that.
And that's why, from that time on, the United States could basically pay off Sunnis to sort of be neighborhood watchmen, and basically a Sunni militia in all these neighborhoods.
And that's how the Maliki government has been able to consolidate enough power that they really can stand without the United States to back them up anymore, you're saying?
I think that's clear.
Okay, so now we get to the point in the story where there's a consensus between the al-Maliki government, Barack Obama, and me, that American forces ought to get out of there, you know, from my point of view, yesterday, but whatever, I'll take 16 months.
But so now we come to the point where you're saying Barack Obama honestly intends to get American forces out, not under funny definitions, but really intends to get all the American forces out, as per the agreement the George Bush government signed with the al-Maliki government in December, but the generals don't want to let that happen.
It goes beyond that agreement, because the agreement itself does not call for withdrawal of all combat forces within 16 months.
That's right, it calls for, what, 24 months or something, right?
It calls for, well, 36 months, all combat plus all other troops to be out in 36 months.
So Obama, he's splitting it halfway between me and al-Maliki, he wants to get out in 16.
I'll take that, Garrett Porter.
Okay, so now we get to the part of the movie where the conflict really begins, and these generals start thinking that they know better than the civilians, whose job it is to boss them around.
Right.
And, you know, of course, the first phase of this, you know, if you followed the media in November and December, is that there were a spate of stories essentially saying that, you know, of course Obama's going to have to adjust his policy to reality, quote-unquote.
But these were stories, I mean, you know, Petraeus and Odierno basically kept their fingerprints off these stories, essentially, these were stories that were based on leaks to the Washington Post, New York Times, and, you know, you have a compliant media which basically agrees with whatever they're told by the brass and the Pentagon officials about this issue, and therefore they were happy to sort of carry that line.
But then, you know, you have the period after the inauguration where, you know, after the January 21st meeting, and as best I can reconstruct what happened, Obama said, look, I'm still convinced that 16 months is the way to go, but I'll be glad to read whatever you give me by way of your assessment of the risks of that and other alternatives.
Then, you know, you have the Petraeus-Odierno duo apparently getting the Pentagon, getting Gates presumably, although we don't know for sure, to request the three studies, the three drawdown plans, the 16-month, 19-month, and 23-month plans.
Now, you know, my view is, I mean, and of course what they're going to do with this is to make the argument that the 16-month plan is too risky, and they'll, you know, gin up some argument, a cockamamie argument, which I can't imagine is going to have any credibility with Obama, because it's not going to stand up to any serious scrutiny.
And then you've got this 23-month plan as well as a 19-month plan.
I happen to think that those are really meaningless.
That's not their real objective.
What they want is more time to hopefully overturn the SOFA agreement, overturn the troop withdrawal agreement, to convince their friends in the Iraqi military to prevail on al-Maliki to basically negotiate a new agreement.
That's what they're really after.
So, I mean, I happen to think that the 23-month plan is nothing more than simply a delaying tactic.
And I also, again, I mean, I become more and more convinced that this is simply not going to be credible, and that Obama has to believe that rolling over for the general is not going to be politically advantageous to him.
It's going to be disadvantageous.
Well, how much pressure is really on him this way or that?
You mean, what are they threatening to do?
I mean, I don't know what they can threaten to do except to go to the media, to leak stuff to the media, to make the argument that they have presumably made in their submission to Obama, which is that everything is going to go to hell, and the ceasefires will fall apart, and everything that happens there will be Obama's fault.
I just don't know how credible that's going to be if Obama chooses to fight over that issue.
Not to fight, but to defend his position.
Yeah.
Well, it is going to be tough.
I guess I can't say or try to guess how tough, really, but it does seem to be the case that they said the surge is working enough times, and then the surge worked enough times that anything bad that happens from here on out, they'll be able to at least attempt to spin it as saying everything was just fine until you, who opposed the war, did X, Y, or Z.
Well, the problem, of course, is comparing a 19, excuse me, a 16-month plan with a 23-month plan, or a 19-month plan.
I mean, we simply know that nothing is going to change sufficiently between those two periods.
Doesn't seem like it.
To justify that kind of argument.
What they're really saying behind the scenes, of course, is that we have to stay much longer.
This is what Odierno told Tom Ricks in his last interview in early November of 2008, just before the election.
And Ricks, of course, has not continued to follow this, and his screeds about the United States necessarily must stay in Iraq for many, many years is all based on what Odierno told him in that interview, and what other people told Ricks in 2008.
He simply hasn't paid any attention to the political reality that's been shifting under his feet in 2008 with the negotiation of the U.S.
-Iraq agreement and the Obama administration coming to power.
And what Ricks said to him is that, I want to have, and need to have, 30,000 or 40,000 troops as of 2014-2015.
In other words, after a second Obama administration.
Now that's what they really want.
And what that really means is that they're saying, we need to stay indefinite.
And we have to stay indefinitely, because that's the only way we can prevent all these bad things from happening.
Well, and listen, as you just said, in explaining how they won a ceasefire from the Sunni insurgency, the Sunni insurgency themselves had to weigh the fact that they were up against two enemies, the Americans and the Shiite militias that the Americans had installed in power.
And so they weighed it, and they cut a ceasefire, really, with both.
It seems like a temporary deal.
It very well could be that, in the absence of American occupation and financing of the concerned local citizens, as Petraeus likes to call them, that there very well could be another battle for Baghdad, you know, between X and Y time.
I think that eventually, whether it's a battle for Baghdad or somewhere else, whether it takes place in Anbar or in the closer end to the capital, it's difficult or impossible to say at this point, but there will be further threats and, undoubtedly, violence between the Sunnis and Shiites in the future.
I mean, you can bet your life on it.
Well, and there's really no question, is there, that only the Kurds support the occupation in any kind of majority among their group.
Right.
Now, beyond that, of course, I mean, the even bigger threat of war is really between the Kurds and the Arabs, both Sunnis and Shiites, in Iraq, over the oil resources of the country.
I mean, the Kurds are ready to go to war, to go beyond what is the present boundaries of Kurdistan and get control of a fairly large band of territory in which oil resources are located south of Kurdistan.
And the al-Maliki government and, indeed, the Sunnis are both dead set against that.
So the possibility, the likelihood of a war between the Kurds and the rest of Iraq is very, very high.
But this is all going to happen further down the road, and the al-Maliki regime is not going to let Americans sit there and basically fiddle around with Iraqi politics while he is trying to continue to consolidate his power against the Sunnis.
I feel pretty strongly that that's the case, and that's why, I mean, you know, he's not going to agree to a very, very large troop contingent continuing to remain in Iraq.
Well, how much do you think of the establishment is behind Barack Obama's position here, rather than Petraeus?
I mean, excluding the Republican War Party, when you take the so-called realists, the Brent Scowcroft, Zbigniew Brzezinski-type foreign policy mavens, did they support Obama's decision to basically face up to the reality that they want us out?
We installed the majority.
They don't need us.
We gotta go?
I don't know the answer to that.
I wish I did.
I suspect that they do support Obama on that, although, you know, I don't know for a fact that's the case.
I think these people, you know, once they're sort of confronted with somebody who has conviction, they quickly sort of salute.
It's when you show the slightest weakness in the face of sort of the general's insistence that you get the media and sort of the grandees of the Democratic Party, and sort of the old guard national security types, continuing to support what Petraeus and O'Donnell want.
Well, after all, it's Obama himself who is the most powerful man in the world, and who actually does have the position to call these shots one way or another, if he so chooses.
That's right.
I think that if he has the consciousness and the self-control and the self-efficiency to stand up to them, I think he is capable of that, and if he does do that, I think he will win.
I think that he will force them to back down, and the whole tone and tenor of the politics of certainly Iraq will suddenly begin to change.
All right, everybody, that's Dr. Gareth Porter from IPS News.
You can find Ollie Reitz at antiwar.com slash Porter.
Thanks very much for your time today.
Glad to be here again.