Text of Colonel Reese’s Memo

NYT
July 30

Text of memo from Col. Timothy R. Reese, Chief, Baghdad Operations Command Advisory Team, MND-B, Baghdad, Iraq:

It’s Time for the US to Declare Victory and Go Home

As the old saying goes, “guests, like fish, begin to smell after three days.” 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. Today the Iraqi Security Forces (ISF) are good enough to keep the Government of Iraq (GOI) from being overthrown by the actions of Al Qaeda in Iraq (AQI), the Baathists, and the Shia violent extremists that might have toppled it a year or two ago. Iraq may well collapse into chaos of other causes, but we have made the ISF strong enough for the internal security mission. Perhaps it is one of those infamous paradoxes of counterinsurgency that while the ISF is not good in any objective sense, it is good enough for Iraq in 2009. Despite this foreboding disclaimer about an unstable future for Iraq, the United States has achieved our objectives in Iraq. Prime Minister (PM) Maliki hailed June 30th as a “great victory,” implying the victory was over the US. Leaving aside his childish chest pounding, he was more right than he knew. We too ought to declare victory and bring our combat forces home. Due to our tendency to look after the tactical details and miss the proverbial forest for the trees, this critically important strategic realization is in danger of being missed.

Equally important to realize is that we aren’t making the GOI and the ISF better in any significant ways with our current approach. Remaining in Iraq through the end of December 2011 will yield little in the way of improving the abilities of the ISF or the functioning of the GOI. Furthermore, in light of the GOI’s current interpretation of the limitations imposed by the 30 June milestones of the 2008 Security Agreement, the security of US forces are at risk. Iraq is not a country with a history of treating even its welcomed guests well. This is not to say we can be defeated, only that the danger of a violent incident that will rupture the current partnership has greatly increased since 30 June. Such a rupture would force an unplanned early departure that would harm our long term interests in Iraq and potentially unraveling the great good that has been done since 2003. The use of the military instrument of national power in its current form has accomplished all that can be expected. In the next section I will present and admittedly one sided view of the evidence in support of this view. This information is drawn solely from the MND-B area of operations in Baghdad Province. My reading of reports from the other provinces suggests the same situation exists there.

(More here. Here's an anonymous opinion on Reese's memo received via military contacts:)

I sent that piece to an acquaintence who's an "advisor" to an Iraqi Bde in Baghdad and ask for his observations. Read the memo in the NYT, then read the advisor's observations below.
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Just read this this morning. Amazing how many SIPR emails end up in the NYT!

But BOCAT 6 (COL Reese) is absolutely dead on. Maybe a few minor quibbles I could find in here, but basically this is post-30 June. Partnership is now pointless and just exposing troops to pointless casualties. Advising needs to get pulled up some echelons and reduced.

When the Brits had this place (1920's-1958) they wanted two air bases (outside Basra, and Habbaniyah), port access in Basra, and access to the oil. Probably also had some intell functions here. And that was that. In exchange they equipped and trained the Iraqi military (and had to fight it in 1941 briefly) and had a treaty that said they would defend Iraq (implicitly from Iran, although what happened is around 1941/2 they ICW the Soviets invaded Iran and occupied it, too.).

That's about all we need here, too, and we should get there by AUG 2010.

Our problem is really that the Army has become the armed wing of the DMV in terms of its staff and bureaucracy. That, wedded to turtle- speed withdrawal plan, is what we're doing here.

I don't want to say much more, because this article was very close to home. BOCAT 6 is the MND-B ISF chief and advisor to the Baghdad ops Cmd. And he knows what's up; this is the best description of what's going on I've yet to see.