Iraq: Waiting to re-ignite for next president?

Tom Curry National affairs writer • Profile • E-mail

WASHINGTON -

This election cycle, msnbc.com is presenting the series Briefing Book: Issues '08 assessing issues and controversies that the next president cannot avoid once he takes the oath of office.

The American entanglement in Iraq has receded as a campaign issue in the past few months, partly because the number of American casualties has declined since last year. But Iraq will be an unavoidable dilemma for the next president.

Why it’s a problem
The United States has had troops in Iraq since March of 2003.

The current Defense Department outlays on Iraq, according to the Congressional Budget Office, total more than $9 billion a month, more than $108 billion a year.

More than 4,000 American military personnel have been killed and more than 30,000 wounded in Iraq since the 2003 invasion.

About 146,000 U.S. troops are now stationed in Iraq, making them unavailable for retraining or for deployment to other parts the world.

Video   McCain, Obama battle over war Oct. 8: Where They Stand: Barack Obama has opposed the war in Iraq from the start, and if elected, promises to end it; for John McCain that's a strategy for defeat. NBC's Jim Miklaszewski reports. Nightly News

“The majority of military assets most effective in waging counterinsurgency and counterterrorist operations remain tied down in Iraq,” said Samuel Brannen, a fellow with the International Security Program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), a Washington think tank.

He added, “Most importantly it includes the so-called ‘high-demand, low-density assets’ that we cannot simply buy more of when we need them, such as Special Operations Forces, overhead reconnaissance capabilities (satellite, unmanned aerial vehicles, etc.), and intelligence analysts.”

This commitment of people and assets makes it more difficult for the United States to respond to threats in other parts of the world.

Where the candidates stand
In a speech on Iraq in July, Democratic presidential candidate Sen. Barack Obama said, “Iraq is not going to be a perfect place, and we don't have unlimited resources to try to make it one.”

Video   Petraeus on Iraq, U.S exit strategy Sept. 7: NBC’s Tom Aspell sits down with Gen. David Petraeus, the man credited with stemming violence in Iraq. Nightly News

He said his goal was “a government that is taking responsibility for its future — a government that prevents sectarian conflict, and ensures that the al-Qaida threat which has been beaten back by our troops does not reemerge.”

He pledged to withdraw “our combat brigades at a pace that would remove them in 16 months.”

But he also said he would keep a “residual force” in Iraq to wipe out al-Qaida remnants, protect diplomats, and train Iraqi police and military forces.

Republican presidential candidate Sen. John McCain said recently that American forces “can only be responsibly withdrawn when it is clear that doing so will not jeopardize the tremendous gains for which our troops have fought.”

The right way to end the war in Iraq, he argued, is to withdraw U.S. troops “as Iraqi forces are able to assume greater responsibility, and as our enemies in Iraq are being increasingly weakened.”

Last year, McCain supported a major increase in the number of troops in Iraq, arguing that if the United States withdrew its forces the result would be “catastrophe in the form of increased Iranian influence. The Saudis are going to have to support the Sunnis. The Kurds are going to have increased problems with Turkey… and the bloodletting will increase, which means to me that we will be back in there, only under far more difficult circumstances, at some point.”

Unanswered questions
Obama has used the term “residual force” to describe the U.S. units he would keep stationed in Iraq if he were president.

In a speech on Iraq in 2006 he spoke of keeping in Iraq “a rapid reaction force to respond to emergencies and go after terrorists.”

But he has not explained how large this residual force would be. Nor has he said when its mission would be finished or when he would order it to be withdrawn.

McCain has not been willing to offer any schedule of troop withdrawal. He has said only that he favors “a further conditions-based withdrawal of U.S. forces” when that becomes possible.

He pointed out at a campaign event in New Hampshire last winter that the United States had kept soldiers in South Korea and Japan for more than 50 years.

A similar long-lasting deployment in Iraq, he said, would “be fine with me as long as Americans are not being injured, or harmed, or wounded, or killed."

Evolution and shifts in position
Obama opposed the Iraq war at the outset and often said during the Democratic primaries that "I have shown better judgment" than his rival Sen. Hillary Clinton (and, by implication, McCain) who "went along with George Bush on the war in Iraq."

Obama voted against the withdrawal of troops from Iraq (on June 22, 2006).

But he also voted (on May 24, 2007 and Nov. 16, 2007) for forcing the withdrawal of troops by cutting off funding for military operations in Iraq.

Obama said in March and April of 2007 that Congress had little choice but to approve the money to sustain the troops in Iraq.

“I think that nobody wants to play chicken with our troops on the ground,” he said.

“What you don't want to do is to play chicken with the president, and create a situation in which, potentially, you don't have body armor, you don't have reinforced Humvees, you don't have night-vision goggles,” he said. 

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