I watch CSPAN from time to time to keep an eye on our Congress. A general recently informed Congress that America has decided to give 9500 armored Hummers equipped with weapons systems to the Iraqi security forces for no charge. The Iraqis agreed to pay the costs for all of the maintenance requirements, and we are transferring our military’s vehicles over to the Iraqi security forces. We have already turned over 1,000 Hummers to them, and we expect to give them the rest by summer’s end. The Hummers will provide the Iraqi security forces with a capacity to overcome the domestic resistance to the Iraqi government, but the Hummers will not enable Iraqi security forces to provide for their own national security. We will allow them to provide for their own security against domestic insurrections, but we will maintain responsibility for their national defense.
The Iraqi security forces will not be “fully matured” until the Iraqi government can afford to pay for all of the weapons, munitions, equipment, wheeled vehicles, armored vehicles, helicopters, airplanes, and all of the other supplies our own army needs to engage a hostile military in modern battle. That is why John McCain said that we will keep our forces there for a hundred years if necessary, because it may take a hundred years before the Iraqi regime can afford to pay for everything we would use to provide for our own security. There is no amount of training, seasoning, or experience the Iraqi military can gain that will replace the equipment a modern military force needs to engage an enemy force in war. When we invaded their country, we made sure to destroy all of those things when we found them, and we are not about to replace those things we had destroyed for free.
Our forces could leave tomorrow, if we left them all of our military equipment. They can probably contract the services of our security contractors directly to receive the training on any equipment they are not familiar with already. Hussein spent billions of dollars on his military each year building up Iraq’s military power. Hussein provided a buffer between Iran and the oil reserves in the Arabian Peninsula. The Bush Administration does not want to turn over control of Iraq to their own government, because we cannot trust them to secure the oil reserves of the Arabian Peninsula for our businesses. Bush intends to keep our forces in Iraq until the oil reserves in the peninsula are exhausted, even if it takes a hundred years. This is called Operation Iraqi Liberation (OIL) by the marines in theatre for good cause. The Iraqi forces will never be formidable enough to exist on their own and independent until the world exhausts the oil supplies of the Arabian Peninsula.