Petraeus backs slower drawdown from Iraq - Army News | News from Afghanistan & Iraq - Army Times

Petraeus backs slower drawdown from Iraq

The U.S. military commander in Iraq said today that while “there’s every intent” to continue reducing the size of the U.S. force there after the last of the brigade combat teams that constituted the “surge” returns home this summer, it would be “sensible and prudent” to pause the drawdown once the surge units redeploy.

Gen. David Petraeus said he had discussed the issue with Defense Secretary Robert Gates, U.S. Central Command head Adm. William Fallon, as well as with the chairman and the vice chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Adm. Michael Mullen and Marine Gen. James Cartwright.

“The consensus is that when you have withdrawn over one quarter of your combat forces – it’s literally a quarter of our brigade combat teams plus two Marine battalions and the Marine expeditionary unit – that it would be sensible and prudent to have a period of consolidation, perhaps some force adjustments and evaluation before continuing with further reductions,” said Petraeus during a telephone interview. There is “every intent” to further reduce forces once the departure of the surge forces is complete in July, but the senior leaders agreed that further reductions ought to be based on conditions in Iraq once the surge forces have left, he added.

“So there should be some decision points, once the dust has settled from all those reductions, at which you assess the situation and determine recommendations for additional reductions,” he said. However, he said, U.S. leaders had yet to determine what decision point might be.

“We’re still doing the analysis to lay out how best and when best to make recommendations on further reductions,” he said.

Petraeus listed a series of factors that will influence any decisions on further withdrawals, including how enemy forces react to the departure of the surge units; local and national political developments; local and national economic developments that might “help cement some of the security gains,” as well as the prospect of elections in the early fall.

The general said that any notion that the debate over whether to pause the drawdown after the surge units leave was pitting him against the Joint Chiefs was “a vast oversimplification” of the situation.

“I very much understand the strain and the sacrifice that these long deployments have required, he said, adding that he and his family had “first-hand knowledge” of those sacrifices as he estimated that by the time he next briefs Congress in April he will have been deployed 52 months since 2001.

“We all want to reduce that strain and increase dwell time” for units at home station, he said.

DISCUSS: Slow and steady withdrawal or all at once?