General Ray Odierno: we may miss Iraq deadline to halt al-Qaeda terror

[tekisui]

Source: Times Online

The activities of al-Qaeda in two of Iraq’s most troubled cities could keep US combat troops engaged beyond the June 30 deadline for their withdrawal, the top US commander in the country has warned.

US troop numbers in Mosul and Baqubah, in the north of the country, could rise rather than fall over the next year if necessary, General Ray Odierno told The Times in his first interview with a British newspaper since taking over from General David Petraeus in September.

He said that a joint assessment would be conducted with the Iraqi authorities in the coming weeks before a decision is made.

Combat troops are due to leave all Iraqi cities by the end of June. Any delay would be a potential setback for President Obama, who has pledged to withdraw all combat forces from Iraq by August 2010 as he switches his focus to Afghanistan.

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 US military to leave the country.

Tens of thousands of supporters of Moqtada al-Sadr, the antiAmerican Shia cleric, marched through Baghdad yesterday, the sixth anniversary of the fall of the capital, to demand the withdrawal of US forces.

more: http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/iraq/article6069734.ece

[Submariner]

1. Ray, Ray Ray....Just do what you're told by the president, and until then, STFU!!!

[BeyondGeography]

2. He's a bad guy who should have been sent home a long time ago

[babylonsister]

3. He sounds like a real loose cannon to me. His son lost an arm

in Iraq. Maybe he has a score to settle? And this was him last October...

http://washingtonindependent.com/15403/odierno-threatens-to-take-toys-go-home-if-iraqis-dont-sign-basing-deal

Odierno Threatens to Take Toys, Go Home if Iraqis Don’t Sign Base Deal
By Spencer Ackerman 10/28/08 4:38 PM

So it’s come to this.

McClatchy’s Leila Fadel reports that Gen. Ray Odierno, commander of U.S. troops in Iraq, is telling the obstinate Maliki government that unless it signs a Status of Forces Agreement with the U.S. before the end of the year, the U.S. is going to leave Iraq with no money, no security and probably no Halloween candy.

Army Gen. Ray Odierno, the top U.S. military commander in Iraq, informed Iraqi officials last week that if their country doesn’t agree to a new agreement governing American forces in Iraq, it would lose $6.3 billion in aid for construction, security forces and economic activity and another $10 billion a year in foreign military sales.

The warning was spelled out in a three-page list that was shown to McClatchy on Monday. Iraqi officials consider the threat serious and worry that the impasse over the so-called status of forces agreement could lead to a crisis in Iraq. Without a new agreement or a renewed United Nations mandate, the U.S. military presence would become an illegal occupation under international law.

The agreement, as I reported, bends over backward to accomodate the Iraqis — and they still don’t want it. Why not just go back to the U.N. for another mandate? The Iraqis told Fadel’s colleague Roy Gutman that they’ll probably just have to do that anyway. But ask yourself: Is threatening to take your toys and go home the way that superpowers behave?

[BeyondGeography]

5. Few Americans have done more to alienate the Iraqi people than Odierno

Thomas Ricks wrote about him in detail in Fiasco:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/07/23/AR2006072300495.html

And now he's worried about terrorism? He has been a one-man recruitment brigade for people who hate our guts. I guess Obama just wants to run out the clock and he's placating a faction in the military that's still loyal to Odierno, but it shows how dysfunctional the institution is that he was still even in Iraq when Obama took office.

[kentuck]

4. See! We told you!

Bush had it under control and now Obama has let it slip back into al Qaeda hands!

<sarcasm>

[bigtree]

6. He's been the biggest hawk there

Odierno always is the first one to float opinions like this. We'll see how it rolls out from there, if it in fact does become part of the backtalk among the leadership.

[TwilightGardener]

7. We might miss Al Qaeda terror altogether if we're not there.