Who Says Less Troops?
Barack Obama is taking heat for hinting that he might refine his 16-month timetable for withdrawing U.S. troops from Iraq. But a forthcoming Pentagon-sponsored report will recommend an even steeper drawdown in less time, NEWSWEEK has learned. If adopted, the 300-page report by a defense analysis group at the Naval Postgraduate School in Monterey, Calif., could transform the debate about Iraq in the presidential election.
Expected to be completed in about a month, it will recommend that U.S. forces be reduced to as few as 50,000 by the spring of 2009, down from about 150,000 now. The strategy is based on a major handoff to the increasingly successful Iraqi Army, with platoon-size U.S. detachments backing the Iraqis from small outposts, with air support. The large U.S. forward operating bases that house the bulk of U.S. troops would be mostly abandoned, and the role of Special Forces would increase.
The report's conclusions have been discussed inside Secretary Robert Gates's Defense Policy Board, a body of outside experts. And they've found favor with some former members of the Iraq Study Group, such as former White House chief of staff Leon Panetta. "That's basically the approach we thought made sense—embedding some of our forces at smaller outposts, transferring major combat to the Iraqis," says Panetta.
Like the Study Group, this report also calls for a regional diplomatic effort complementing negotiations with the Iraqi tribes, which echoes the previous recommendations of such analysts as John Arquilla, a professor at the Naval Postgraduate School. "Even with a small leavening of American troops the Iraqis perform quite well," he says.
The biggest problem: Iraq commander Gen. David Petraeus, who oversaw the surge, is said to oppose the recommendations, according to a Defense contractor who is privy to the discussions. Asked about the report, Pentagon spokesman Bryan Whitman told NEWSWEEK that Gates "feels the most important military advice he gets is from his commanders on the ground." As the next head of Central Command, Petraeus will soon have responsibility for Afghanistan and Pakistan too, which could change his views on troop deployments and the new report. Spokesman Col. Steve Boylan says Petraeus "is focused on Iraq at this point and will continue to be."
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Michael Hirsh covers international affairs for NEWSWEEK reporting on a range of topics from Homeland Security to postwar Iraq. He co-authored the November 3, 2003 cover story, "Bush's $87 Billion Mess," about the Iraq reconstruction plan. The issue was one of three that won the 2004 National Magazine Award for General Excellence.
Hirsh writes a column on Newsweek.com entitled "The World from Washington" focusing on foreign policy issues and serves as Washington Web Editor for Newsweek. He also edited NEWSWEEK's "Issues 2007" special issue, which explores all facets and issues of globalization.
Hirsh was the magazine's Foreign Editor from January 2001 to January 2002, and helped guide Newsweek's award-winning coverage of the September 11 attacks and the war on terror. Before that he was a Senior Editor/Chief Diplomatic Correspondent in the Washington bureau, writing about foreign affairs and international economics. Hirsh was also managing editor for the Newsweek International special issue "ISSUES 2001," the second in a series of three annual reviews of the global economy in the new century.
From September 1998 to December 1999, as Diplomatic Correspondent, Hirsh covered foreign policy, the State Department and the Treasury. He moved to the Washington D.C. bureau in May 1997, previously serving as a senior editor of Newsweek International, covering the same beat.
Prior to joining NEWSWEEK in October 1994 as a New York-based senior writer, Hirsh served as the Tokyo-based Asia Bureau Chief for Institutional Investor from 1992 to 1994. Previously, he was a correspondent for the Associated Press in Tokyo and a National Editor in New York.
Hirsh was co-winner of the 2002 Ed Cunningham Award for best magazine reporting from abroad for Newsweek's terror coverage and contributed to the team of Newsweek reporters who earned the magazine the prestigious 2002 National Magazine Award for General Excellence, also for the magazine's coverage of the war on terror. Hirsh also won a Deadline Club Award in 1997 for investigative reporting on his expose of the IRS's abusive practices, and was one of five finalists for a 1994 Gerald Loeb Award for Distinguished Business and Financial Journalism for his article, "China's Financial Revolutionaries." It profiled the new generation of mainland Chinese businessmen who are striving to build a capitalist financial system from scratch. Hirsh is the author of the nonfiction book "At War with Ourselves" (Oxford University Press, 2003) which explores America's foreign policy and its global role.
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