No, Combat Operations In Iraq Have Not Ended

By Steve Hynd

The willingness of both the mainstream media and the Democrat-supporting punditocracy to willingly shill for the Obama administration's narrative on Iraq is depressing me today.

I expect the MSM to be bi-partisan shills - it's how they preserve their precious access and convince themselves they are players instead of the referees they should be. But the pundits should really know better and have more integrity.

There are 50,000 regular combat-capable troops still in Iraq. They'll still be conducting patrols along with Iraqi security forces and counter-terrorism missions of their own. They'll still be fighting and getting killed. Some are feeling like chopped liver today:

The 3rd Brigade Combat Team, 4th Infantry Division is a combat brigade currently less than half-way through a deployment in Iraq and there's no word of them coming home before their scheduled spring 2011 homecoming. Soldiers and their families that make up the 3,700 soldiers in that unit say the fighting continues and the only difference is the classification of their unit changing from "combat" to a "sustainable" brigade.

It's not an "end to the combat mission", it's a re-branding for domestic political purposes.

Then there are the approximately 14,000 Naval and 13,000 Air Force personnel who will remain until the very last moment (and perhaps beyond - these guys aren't "troops" even though some of them do outside-the-wire combat support.) The latter are particularly worth watching because even the best estimates say Iraq won't be able to take responsibility for its own air defense for years yet, as much as another decade.

Oh yeah, and the private armed security contractors - mercenaries - who already number over 20,000 and to which the State Dept. plans to add up to 7,000 more.

To move around Iraq without United States troops, the State Department plans to acquire 60 mine-resistant, ambush-protected vehicles, called MRAPs, from the Pentagon; expand its inventory of armored cars to 1,320; and create a mini-air fleet by buying three planes to add to its lone aircraft. Its helicopter fleet, which will be piloted by contractors, will grow to 29 choppers from 17.

The department�s plans to rely on 6,000 to 7,000 security contractors, who are also expected to form �quick reaction forces� to rescue civilians in trouble, is a sensitive issue, given Iraqi fury about shootings of civilians by American private guards in recent years.

...The startup cost of building and sustaining two embassy branch offices � one in Kirkuk and the other in Mosul � and of hiring security contractors, buying new equipment and setting up two consulates in Basra and Erbil is about $1 billion.

So no, we are not at an end of "combat operations" in Iraq. We're unlikely to see an end to Americans employed by their government dying in combat in 2011 either.

It's just spin, folks.

Think of it as a practise run for the smoke and mirrors operation that's going to be mounted to try to save face for the politicians and generals in Afghanistan.