It took 9 years to repair both Germany and Japan which were far more damaged than Iraq. The U.S. stayed in Germany and Japan because of outside forces such as the Soviet Union, China and North Korea. Since the Soviet Union is gone, U.S. bases in Germany have been closing (with 40,000 troops left). http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,122224,00.html

If the U.S. believes that foriegn forces such as Iran want to invade Iraq, the U.S. government should just say the U.S. will have a permanent military presence in Iraq. To say 50,000 troops are needed to stay in Iraq to deter foriegn invasion is a concrete plan.

There just isn’t such a plan for a permanent stay except to train Iraqis. But how many advisors are needed? The U.S. had about 16,000 advisors at any one time in Vietnam training the Vietnamese. One General said it would take 10 more years before Iraq got on it’s feet. If it’s just because they are untrained, then 20,000 advisors (no security troops) for 10 years would be a real plan too.

So far half the providences have been handed over to Iraq’s government. What’s left is Bagdhad, Salahad Din, Diyala, Wasit, Babil, (Al-)Anbar, Ninawa and At Ta’mim (Kirkuk). Outside of Bagdhad and Anbar, that’s 9 million people and 66,400 sq miles. Anbar has 2.2 million people and 53,500 square miles. Bagdhad is 456 sq with 6.4 million people Right now 130 battalions of Iraqi forces (with 60 taking the lead) are covering 30,000 miles. Surely they can crunch the numbers and come up with a time frame. At this level of training, 520 more Iraqi battalions would be needed to secure the remaining providences. If it takes a year to train one guy to do basic work, then 26,000 trainers could crank that number out in a year. Then the U.S. could leave 10,000 security advisors and 10,000 infrastructure advisors around for the next 10 years. Right now there are plans to draw down to as much as 100,000 at the begining of 2009.

The advisory panel for Clinton lists a draw down to 60,000 in 2010 and to 20,000 in 2011.

The Bush team is stuck at 100,000 which would be mostly in Bagdhad. There isn’t even an idea of how long the U.S. will have overstayed it’s welcome. Right now the only thing that the administration said would cause the troops to leave is when the Iraqi government asks the troops to leave. If the next president has the troops leave, but the advisors in 2009 and nothing majorly bad happens, then people are going to wonder what the Bush administration was waiting for.

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Gotta agree Curt.

Lets take a hypothetical, if for no other reason than Hillary hates them. For reasons of whatever source the entire civilian policing structure city, county, state , highway patrol, dog catchers all get wiped out by chemical genetic mutation that kills them one and all in California.

Now without any outside recruits, just a training team at the same size ratio we have in Iraq how long will it take to rebuild the entire state policing structure for the state? How long would it take for them to develop expertise is evidence gathering to successfully prosecute cases IAW the law? How long to develop a senior enlisted officer group to lead and train and mentor those under them.

Other questions of similar nature would be instructive.

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Uh, everything you suggested is already being done. Provinces are being handed over as the Iraqi’s get trained up. If your suggesting to just up and leave after all the success we had, giving back the ground won to our enemy then I think you have a bad case of HUA.

What is it with the NOW generation? Everything must happen now dammit! This instant!

We were still in Japan long after the war ended. We were still in Germany also. We are still in Korea. You don’t take down a dictator, disband their government, and then leave. What we’re doing is working, and believe me they are not operating with “general” goals. They have specific goals to meet but it all takes time.

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At this point, I think the U.S. military needs to come up with specific goals for Iraq rather than general ones. This would prevent fixation like an Everquest junkie in a never ending universe. “Till the job is done” is actually open ended since there is always something that could be done. Even “Till Iraq is secure” is open ended since there will always be some sort of violent crime in Iraq and the threat of an invasion of Iran. Till the Iraqi politicans get their act together? As a whole, the Iraqi politicans are probably more competent than the U.S. government as a whole.

I don’t believe the insurgence has the power to regroup without outside help such as Iran. I do think think the U.S. military could give back the remaining providences to Iraq’s government and then look for security weaknesses such as a police force being unable to work inside a city. If the insergency is weaker than thought and there is no security problems the Iraqis can’t handle, the U.S. could leave sooner than thought. If the insergency has strong points that the Iraqis can’t handle, then the U.S. military would have a better idea where those strong points are.

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