This week, Gen. Ray Odierno, the current commanding general of all forces deployed to Iraq, conducted an interview with the British newspaper The Times in which he claimed that a June 30 deadline to remove all U.S. combat troops from Iraqi cities might be missed due to “the activities of al-Qaeda” in Iraq.
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“The two areas I am concerned with are Mosul and then Baqubah and [other] parts of Diyala province,” Gen. Odierno said. “We will conduct assessments and provide our assessments when the time’s right.”
The Times said, “He added that over the next 12 months, ‘We won’t see a large reduction in any forces in Mosul or Diyala. In fact we might see reinforcements in those areas if we continue to have issues.’”
The general continued, “[W]e can’t allow politics, we can’t allow pride, we can’t allow ego to cause violence to occur when you can solve a problem with dialogue.”
The Times article highlighted the colonial contradiction the current Iraqi puppet government is faced with when it revealed: “The ultimate decision on keeping or withdrawing troops would be taken by Nouri al-Maliki, the Iraqi Prime Minister, handing him a big dilemma, given the desire by most Iraqis for the U.S. military to leave the country.”
Gen. Odierno and the Pentagon planners are simply trying to find ways to legitimize the continuation of the occupation. In this case, the general is trying to cast occupation forces in the role of peacekeepers who are in Iraq to “aid” the Iraqi government.
He would lead us to believe that the decision on keeping or withdrawing troops is not made by the Pentagon or the commander-in-chief of U.S. forces, but rather is based on the decision of Iraq’s colonial head of state.
For those who have been paying attention to U.S. involvement in Iraq, the revelation that the United States has long-term plans to maintain an occupation is not a shock at all. The United States has never planned to willingly remove its entire occupation force from the country of Iraq. The vast amounts of oil that the U.S. empire has now acquired will require military force in order to protect its ownership.
This is only the latest tactic in the attempts to remove blame and responsibility from the United States—a country that has illegally bombed, invaded and occupied the country of Iraq over the last several decades.
Odierno’s interview came not even two weeks after President Obama had pledged to “remove all combat troops” by August 2010. Now we are told that this decision is out of President Obama’s hands.
The idea that Prime Minister Maliki is faced with a difficult political decision is certainly true. On one hand, Maliki is subjected to intense pressure by the top brass inside the Pentagon to allow U.S. combat forces to remain deployed in Iraq. On the other hand, Maliki would have to go against the wishes of nearly the entire population of Iraq that clearly wants all occupying forces out of its country immediately.
The Veterans and Service Members Task Force calls for all U.S. soldiers to refuse to serve in the continued occupation of Iraq and for the working peoples of the world to stand in solidarity with those in Iraq and to demand that President Obama and the Pentagon immediately withdraw all occupying forces from Iraq.
James Circello is an Iraq war veteran and member of the Veterans and Service Members Task Force of the ANSWER Coalition. You can visit their website at www.ThisIsNotOurWar.org
