In an interview with the Fayetteville Observer, Lt. Gen. Stephen Townsend talked about a planned troop rotation coming up in September, saying he hoped the fighting over the city of Mosul would be over by then, but that despite predictions of an end to the ISIS war, US troops should stay.
Townsend’s comments about the US having a long-term military presence in Iraq is in keeping with other Pentagon officials, who have tried to blame the rise of ISIS between the end of the 2011 occupation and the 2014 reinvasion on the lack of US ground troops, despite the US having a substantial presence, and having spend years arming and training Iraq’s military.
Townsend insisted that the US troops would have to stay long after the ISIS war specifically to train up the Iraqi military again, and to make sure that they can actually fight off future insurgencies. There’s no indication how long this would take.
Other officials, however, have envisioned a more or less permanent US military presence, suggesting that the only way Iraq can be kept intact without collapsing into another immediate war would be for the US to have a number of troops.
Status quo Ante?
Fully expecting the US to re-flatten Fallujah at some point in time and gets its ass ripped off by IEDs that will be blamed on “Iran” will Sadr city erupts in anger. Ah, the long hot summers of the ’00s
No need to go back to Fallujah. Been destroyed twice with depleted uranium. Uninhabitable. Cancer rate thru the roof.
I seem to recall the sectarian violence flourishing while we were still occupying Iraq with our troops at their highest level. The neighborhoods were cleansed right under our noses. Of course since the standard of living is so s**tty, we should be able to maintain that.
Biggest mistake America ever made was removing Sadaam from power.I know he was the butcher of Baghdad and was a ruthless person but,he was a Sunni that ruled over a majority Shiite Muslim country and did what he had to do to keep control.He also kept Iran in check removing him and allowing the Iraqis to vote just helped Iran in the end being the majority of their population is Shiite like Iran’s.So to all you people saying we’re taking over countries and installing puppet government’s look at Iraq,in my opinion a failure.USA
We did install a puppet government in Iraq. The fact it’s a failure doesn’t change that.
Yes, you’re right .. We did install a puppet gov’t. and it turned out to be a total failure. What it did was create Daesh, which terrorized not only Iraq, but Syria as well .. And it changed the ME to a more chaotic, violent region.
Lt. General Stephen Townsend’s a total moron, he’s knows absolutely nothing about the cultures and nuances in the ME .. He sorely needs to keep his big mouth shut and leave that region to the experts.
May wanna check with Moktada B4 making plans to extend the occupation.!!!
I say, get the hell out of Iraq. The best action Obama took was withdrawing US troops from Iraq. We had no right to occupy that country in the first place. That was W’s biggest mistake, invading and occupying Iraq and removing Saddam Hussein from power. Iraq had nothing to do with 911, so why invade and occupy it? All that did was create ISIL by disbanding the Iraqi army.
No country wants to be occupied by foreign forces, they all want to be sovereign states, which is their right.